The Strength Of Three
by Stealthytanub
Summary: Nerv has failed, he had failed. The Third Impact happened, no matter how hard they tried to stop it. When Shinji is presented with a choice, save Humanity as it is or conform them into a sea of LCL, he takes a third option. After all, plans never end the way they were intended too, especially not when Shinji is involved. Shinji/Asuka/Rei. Time Travel. Equal relationship.
1. Prologue

**My first Evangelion story.**  
 **Tell me what you think and what I might have missed of misinterpreted about the story :D**

 **Edit - Spelling error brought to attention by Satanic Park Of Madness**

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The world had fallen, despite their best efforts, no matter what they had done or how hard they had fought. The Angels had won, reuniting Adam with Lilith and initiating the Third Impact, just as Gendo had said it would.

Only instead of if it being Gendo to be in control of the end of the world, it was Shinji. When the final angel had fallen, SEELE had swept in with their Mass-Produced Eva and taken Adam from Gendo while the Eva were still recovering from the fight with the 17th angel, Tabris.

No matter how skilled they were or how much they pushed their bodies and Eva, they didn't have the strength to repel nine infinitely regenerating, berserk Mass-Produced Evangelions. Despite killing four, they had to retreat, carrying Unit 02's damaged pilot and body with them.

When they arrived at the new Nerv HQ, a recently constructed Pseudo-Geofront, as their Eva were in repair the Pilot's were placed into one of the most protected location on the base, this incidentally all placing them in the same room.

Space in the new HQ was at a premium and it wasn't unusual to see personal sleeping on whatever they could find, each other and the floor included. So when it came time to enter their new accommodations none of the pilot's said a word, too lost in the slow encroaching insanity to complain as the deaths of those they cared about ran through the, pushing their minds to breaking point.

The tipping point in their relationship was when one night, Asuka woke up after a reoccurring nightmare of her mind rape by Arael and she fall into a spiraling depression that caused her to lose her ability to pilot, one of the very few things keeping her mind tethered to the realm of sanity.

When she awoke, she found herself sandwiched between Shinji and Rei, none of them needed to say anything as they basked in the comfort that they found in each other. The only people that knew what it was like to pilot Eva, the only people who she could let her walls down. On that night as she broke down in their arms, Shinji steeled himself, finally understanding why he piloted Eva 'To protect Rei and Asuka'. As the idea firmed itself in his head he didn't even notice that he didn't include anyone but his fellow pilot's in his promise, something that would one day lead to the end of the world.

As time passed, SEELE started using Adam to revive the angels, with their power firmly in the grip of SEELE the Angels once more took to the world in search of Lilith. It mattered not how many times they killed an Angel, so long as SEELE had Adam they continuously revive them and send them back to fight no matter how many times they were killed.

After years of battling the Angels, with occasional appearances from the Mass-Produced Eva to try and pick off an Eva if it was damaged, something that was becoming rarer and rarer as time passed, technology advanced and the pilot's became more and more skilled in operating their Eva.

At a certain point, the attacks were coming in so frequently, that they had elected to start living inside their Eva plugs, often only communicating with one another and command when an Angel attacked, slowly becoming more and more in tune with their Eva. So much so, that after a certain point they had noticed their Eva moving without them needing to think about it. Much like Unit 01 had moved to protect Shinji when he had first seen it. It was only during this time they spent immersed in their Eva that they started realizing, their Eva were alive. Not just alive, they were intelligent enough to know what their pilot wanted without even having to think about it.

As the years passed, more of their new friends at Nerv died around them and as more and more of them died the three of them grew closer and more secluded, eventually to the point that they no longer knew anyone around HQ but Gendo as the Sub-Commander had died of old age, those they knew died in battle and were replaced just as quickly as they were removed.

Gendo saw his plan's getting further and further away from him as Rei stopped listening and started opening up to the two who were her life, they were everything to her and she would do anything to keep it that way, he took a desperate leap and ordered the Eva to attack where Adam was located. Gendo had known for years where Adam was located, but was waiting for a good moment to attack, and when that moment never came it slowly grated on his patience being so close to his goal, until he snapped and decided that now was the time to start the Third Impact even if he didn't know who would be in command with Rei so out of his control.

Especially so as he had never realized his mistake of putting three young, hormonal teenagers who relied upon each other utterly to keep their minds intact, that were soon to be adult's in the same room. They didn't know when it had started but at some point they had started thinking less that of each other as friends and more as potential partner's. At this point they had been tentatively together for little over several months, their shattered and socially inept minds doing what they could to cling to one another, seeing romantic relationships as simply the next step of comfort in their broken minds.

When they received what was to be their final orders, they could all feel the end upon them, for good or was at this point what little adoration Rei still held for Gendo slipped away and she broke down in Shinji and Asuka's arms, her mind finally cracking under the load she had burdened herself with as her emotions came to bear with a force she had never felt before she told them everything, how that she was the third Rei, what Gendo had planned to do with her and his plan for the Third Impact. As the story slowly unraveled to her partners they held her as she cried, begging them to understand.

When everything had been brought to the table, their souls bared for one another, they gave in to what they had wanted for years, consummating their relationship with one another as they surrendered themselves to their lust for the first time, it was clumsy, sometimes painful and they didn't know what to do but for them it was an intimacy they had never experienced as it brought them closer than they thought possible.

The next day, their Eva were fitted with long operation packs, giant external battery packs that extended their Eva's operational length. They also had miniature reactors dropped with them so that they could return to them whenever they needed a power-up. It was the first all out assault the Eva had made but Gendo was well aware of the massive issue that was the Eva's limited power supply and had made efforts to minimize the problems that it might cause with the lack of S2 engines.

After a long, hard fought battle in which they had the upper hand in the fact the SEELE had started to believe themselves so invincible with all of the power they wielded that they had neglected defense for all out offense. In the end they had engineered their own defeat. They had been so occupied sending Angel after Angel at the crumbling Nerv that they had not realized that in essence they were giving the pilot's more and more combat experience. In the end, they had been fighting for so long that it was all they knew, their childhood had long faded behind them as they spent seven long years fighting, day in day out. The only thing that they had left was one another and the rare few psychologists that could get a hand on them had long since stopped trying to get them to rely on each other as much as they did.

When all was said and done, Unit 01 and Unit 02 limped back to base carrying Unit 00 between them, Adam secured from SEELE once again.

Their fault was that in the heat of battle, they had forgotten one crucial detail, Gendo still held the command codes for their Eva and in short order Unit 00 and 02 had been shutdown before they could react and it was only the presence lurking within the Eva that kept them alive, while Shinji remained active he manually set his Eva into sleep mode, seeing as he had a little less than three hours left before his Eva powered down he had planned to set a trap for Gendo as he tried to retrieve Adam for his purposes.

But what they didn't know what they instead of powering down Unit 00 Gendo had over-pressurized her LCL and crushed Rei under the pressure her inside her Plug. Her soul being bound to the 'Reiquarium' she instantly was in her rebirth cycle then inside Rei 4. Where Gendo took her while she was still dazed from dying a horrible death and merged Adam, who had been retrieved before Shinji had even thought of laying a trap.

When the Third Impact was about to start, Rei was already too far gone to stop it but she was still aware enough to know that she could give the choice to another, and in her hazy mind where once Gendo would have stood out now Shinji stood above all equal only to Asuka who was absent, and her subconscious guiding her as the world died around her she reached out and embraced Unit 01 pulling her and Shinji to the heavens as the knowledge that all they had done was for nothing and the sacrifices they had made were meaningless hit Shinji and his mind started to fracture, at this point the only thing keeping it together was the comforting reassurance from the presence in his Eva and the overwhelming feeling that could only be Rei.

As the world ended around him and his Eva, Shinji laid immersed in LCL inside his plug, mind on the verge of going completely as everything he had worked so hard for seven years crumbling around him.

"They won. It's all over." Was all Shinji said as he felt the immense power flowing through his Eva, his stubborn nature that came from being around Asuka flaring up without him even noticing as his body fought to control his Eva even as him mind drifted away, the pull too strong for him to resist any longer.

"Yes. Adam and Lilith have been reunited." He heard a familiar voice say, even then though his heart stayed grounded, he knew Rei, he knew her heart and soul and this wasn't her.

"I've failed everyone." It was a statement, he knew he had.

"Only if you think so." A soft voice whispered from the void around him.

Shinji lifted his head towards wherever the voice was coming from and saw what looked like a naked Rei, only she had no defining features such as nipples, finger nails or genitals.

"Lilith." He didn't know how he knew, only that he did. "The Third Impact?" He asked but both knew it was a statement rather than a question.

"The end of the world."

There was a long silence as Shinji mentally ran over anything he could do, something to stop what was happening and bring everything back to normal.

"Adam was just as impressed as I was by your efforts."

Shinji's eyes came back into focus at those words as his mind tried to work that out. "How?"

"Did you know when the Third Impact was supposed to happen?"

Shinji frowned in thought 'Supposed to happen?'

"It was seven years ago." Shinji felt his eyes widen at that, his shock showing on his face. "You defied fate, destiny and all that stood in your way for seven years. Only failing because you were betrayed from within."

Shinji felt himself go slack, 'They had been fighting so hard for so long, for what? To prolong his crumbling existence against the inevitable?'

"They Angels feel the same way."

Shinji knew the Angels were sentient, they learned from their past mistakes and came up with new tactics so they had to be, but to know that they respected him? Why?

"Because you bested them." Lilith seemed to read his mind, or perhaps just his face. "Not once, you killed them hundreds of times, no matter what they did, how hard they tried they all fell to the Eva."

Seeing Shinji was still recovering from that information she smiled tenderly at him and ran a hand down the his cheek 'Just like Rei' was the first thought that came to mind before he squashed it with years of experience of hiding guilt.

"Before they went to battle, they cried the name they had given you." Lilith seemed to squint for a second before she smiled again "God-Slayer."

Having had enough time to regain his balance from where he had been mentally knocked of equilibrium his slammed down on his emotions as he had done so thousands of times before, he needed to think clearly here.

Lilith seemed disappointed that he had gone cold now and tried to look at him in the same pleading manner Rei had used when she wanted to make a point but it came across as a pale shadow of what it should be.

"You said something about what I thought?"

Lilith seemed to sigh now that she had to go back to what she was doing before, her joyous air gone for now. "When Gendo initiated the Third Impact Rei killed him in her last moments of consciousness and that left the only other who had touched Adam for me to be drawn to. The world has prepared for the Third Impact, there is no stopping it."

Shinji felt his heart drop even with his tight grasp on his emotions, it was all over and as he started to fall into despair, Rei and Asuka were dead. 'What do I have to live for now' Shinji thought as he went limp as his body finally gave up on trying to stop the Eva and his eyes dimmed the life that had been there fading into a dull sheen.

Lilith saw his failing condition and intervened before he was too far gone to make the decision that he needed to make, otherwise they would both be here forever, his mind dead and her waiting his choice. "You have a choice." She quickly made out, seeing the life in his eyes stop draining away as he hung onto any lifeline that he could. "Eva Unit 01 was modeled after Adam, Gendo was dead, as was his piece of Adam so I took to the closest piece of him."

Shinji could feel the void, his mind was teetering, one wrong word and his mind would fall to oblivion forever at the loss of his loved ones, his reason to live gone.

"Whoever started the Third Impact would control what became of it, what happens to the world is in your hands now."

Shinji didn't care for the world, he cared for Rei and Asuka and seeing as they were both dead he cared for nothing. "Don't care. Rei and Asuka are gone."

Lilith winced in her mind, this was bad, if he went to much further then he might try to destroy her and with his position of being able to order her to do whatever he wanted she would have to do as he said and kill herself.

"I don't care. I just want to have them back." Shinji whispered to himself as he felt the cold of the void around him. Back? What was it about that word, something in him had latched on and refused to let go of it until him mind thought it over.

"Back?" He whispered aloud to Lilith's confusion.

Shinji felt his mind start grinding again, his life having a purpose again if he could just think of what it was. 'Back?' Shinji mulled over the word for what could have been seconds or years, in this place time mattered none, it had not been created yet.

"TIME!" His mind suddenly latched onto what he had just thought about, time didn't matter here because it hadn't been created. So if they had the power to create time, what was to say that they didn't have other powers over it?

Before Lilith could ask what he was thinking his eyes suddenly came back to life, the steel and sheer fire in them that had defined his life after he had found his spine, flared with excitement and a hint of madness. "Yes, time!" Shinji said excitedly to the slight worry of Lilith, 'Had he lost his mind already?'

"You created time yes?" He went on without even giving her a chance to answer "If you created time you control it." He announced to Lilith's dawning horror.

'Was he really thinking of-' Her thoughts were cut off again by the sound of his voice "I order you to turn back time, to before this happened, to when I can stop this!"

Lilith felt the LCL in her veins freeze at his orders, he was supposed to choose between letting humanity live separate or to live as a part of the whole as a sea of LCL soup. Not this madness. She tried to open her mouth and deny him but her own power bucked against her, reminding her that she had to do as he ordered.

"If that is what you think." She said in the most graceful tone she could manage, reminding herself that even at the edge of madness and grief that this was the man who had defied god for nearly a decade, he had defied fate, he had killed gods, they all had. No matter what she did or said, to him she was an Angel, not to be trusted and to be destroyed as soon as possible. 'It looks like appearing as Rei hasn't soothed his mind enough to stop him.'

Shinji felt hope, something he had only felt sparingly through the years before he suddenly remembered something that made his heart drop, 'They won't remember me. Wait, who says that only I have to go back?' Before Lilith could go through with the madman's desire he suddenly interrupted her again and said something that caused her more dread than she imagined she could feel.

"I want you to send all of us back, Rei, Asuka. All of us!" Shinji was smiling now, he would have what he wanted and get back what he had lost, all of the suffering, the scars he bore, physical and mental. They would mean something.

Lilith felt her AT field, inside of which she controlled all of reality spread in an instant to cover the entire universe and beyond, before drawing on Adam and reaching out into other dimensions and settling around it all with such power that the fabric of reality started to tear causing entire regions of the universes to be obliterated into dust. Within her field, she felt time grind against her will, before slowly, ever so slowly she felt it start turning backwards, her will forcing time back along the path is had wrought.

As this was happening and it started speeding up, Shinji felt something pulling him back from this void he looked up upon the focusing face of Lilith and gave her a single smirk that said more than words possible could. I win.

Lilith could feel herself pulled backwards in time, her memories disintegrating in the wind as her power ignored her even as she tried to force it. 'If they go back to the past, then the Third Impact will never happen. I WILL NOT CEASE TO EXIST!' Was the last thought that she made out before her mind was shredded by her power to return her to the state she was in the past as Rei's soul was taken back from the amalgamation that was Lilith.

'I've done it…' Was the last thought Shinji had as he blinked, seeing a familiar phone booth and over the world, three warriors opened their eyes, somehow knowing what had happened and what awaited them.

They were ready.


	2. Chapter One

**Tell me what you think, any spelling errors made and anything I might have misinterpreted.**

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As Shinji opened his eyes from the blink, everything had changed. Where before there was the empty void of space that was wherever Lilith had dragged him, now there stood a green phone booth that was nestled against the wall in front of him.

Blinking again he spun and pressed his back against the wall as he dropped the phone in his hand to raise it into a fighting position, being no stranger to attempts on his life from SEELE or Nerv agents who thought that killing him might stop the Angels somehow, the pressure of the constant Angel attacks can stress their minds more than they can take. Another second passed before he realized not only where he was but when he was. The moment he realized what had happened he let himself slide down the wall slightly, the brief moment of instinct to find cover if the terrain suddenly altered gone, replaced with a slowly building joy.

At first it was just a niggle in his still tightly controlled mind but eventually it grew too strong for him to contain and his emotional barriers shattered, causing a smile that previously had been reserved for his partners to spread over his now younger face _'I did it. I really did it.'_

He stood slumped against the wall for several seconds as his emotions ran wild, and he let them for the first time in years, under no need to keep the fresh faced recruits from panicking that something was wrong or to be strong for his partners as they were for him.

He didn't know when he started laughing, it was a quiet thing that was on the verge of dipping into hysteria. He let himself indulge for awhile longer before he brought his frayed emotions under control and stood up straight, not noticing the slight pulling from his back as he did so, reaching for the pocket on the front of his _'Was that a school uniform?'_ was the first thing to cross his mind as he thought back, vague memories of what he was wearing came back to him.

"I'm in uniform already?" He mumbled to himself "Must have had a reason for it. Even if I'm supposed to be meeting Commander Ikari today." The memory that came with that name drew a grimace from him _'I can't even think of a term to describe the depths of his monstrous behavior.'_

Getting himself back under control he reached for the pocket again and felt a small card beneath his hand, pulling back his hand as he flipped the card over he was rewarded with the sight of Misato bending over and giving him a wink in an outfit really not befitting of wearing near children, this accentuated by an arrow pointing him to look here pointing towards her glorious _'But not as good as Rei's or Asuka's'_ breasts.

Seeing the picture brought back memories of the last time he had seen his surrogate mother, her pushing him forwards to his Eva as she held a hand to her bleeding side, at the time he was too mentally swamped to understand the implications of what he had seen but after the battle, learning of her death had been something that brought him closer to breaking that he had been in a long time. Without thinking his hand moved to his neck to touch where he now wore her necklace, still splattered with her blood, he dared not wash it so as to never forget what his cowardice has cost him.

When his hand connected with something his eyes went wide when he was suddenly made very aware of the feeling of string around his neck, something he was so used to that he had forgotten that it was even there. _'I have Misato's necklace!'_ The revelation almost caused a minor panic in him as he tried to think about why he had it, how did it go back in time with him? It was the same necklace, it even had the same blood splatter that the old had, with scratches in the same place that a new one just wouldn't have. _'What if Misato see's this?'_ He thought with a feeling of dread as he cut off that line of thought before even stating on it.

Before his mind got far he glanced to his right and saw the same spectral figure standing there as he did before, only now he recognized it as his Rei, something she seemed to reciprocate as she smiled back at him before blinking out of existence as if she had never been there. _'I never did ask Rei if that was her and if so how she did that...'_

As his mind was chewing through that conundrum he felt the ground shake and once again acted on instincts drilled into him from years of lethal combat, he slid behind the phone booth and reached for the holo-communicator he always kept on his person encase Angels attacked when he wasn't on base for whatever reason, only for his hand to brush against nothing as he realized that he didn't have one because they didn't exist yet. The holo-communicator being the work of someone who was only twelve right now, and in a Serbian school for misbehaved children.

His eyes were drawn to a shape that he was intimately familiar with even as his mind focused on the task of killing the Angel before his train of thought was cut off as a shiny blue Renault pulled into a skid in front of him, the door swinging open as the car was stopping even as he started running towards it before the half hidden driver had even spoken a word.

Pushing his currently weak body as hard as he could he reached the car in what felt like record time as he threw himself through the open door even as the driver glanced over to call him in before he interrupted her in the middle of calling.

"Drive!" Shinji shouted at what had to be Misato, she even smelt like beer, _'Misato? Oh god I forgot she was the one to pick me up.'_ Shinji thought as he tried to avoid jumping the woman and giving her the biggest hug her could manage in his teenage body as he was in the middle of slamming the door shut with one hand whilst reaching for the seat belt with the other.

Misato needed no more encouragement as a VTOL was smashed through the building to his right, landing within meters of the car as the Fourth Angel pushed the same building out of the way as if it was made of paper whilst ignoring the three other VTOL's putting enough firepower into it to turn a tank into Swiss Cheese.

Just as the Fourth pushed the rest of the building aside it stood upon the fallen VTOL, detonating what little munitions were left in it's stores. _'It's done much more in the past, it's playing right now. Or is it tired? The time travel affected it too?'_ Shinji mused as Misato pushed the car to the limits, barely avoiding the shrapnel from the explosion as it pinged off the sides of the frame and spitting out a curse in German that Asuka would have been impressed by.

Hearing this Shinji raised an amused eyebrow at Misato who smiled at him, trying not to look sheepish that she had sworn in front of a child even if she didn't think he understood her, not realizing that after living with Asuka for so many years he was just as fluent in German as he was in Japanese and he found her hidden language amusing _'Had she always sworn in German?'._

"Wie vulgär. (How vulgar.)" Shinji said with a teasing grin that grew slightly larger when he saw her embarrassed expression. _'She didn't think I knew German.'_ He thought his grin turning softer even as he ignored the explosions taking place around him as Misato drove like a madwoman through the city towards the outskirts, he had missed her, the last time he had seen her he hadn't appreciated just what she had given up for him to be happy but now he fully intended to repay the debt he owed her.

As they came out on one of the roads that had been built to loop around the city so that Nerv personnel could still get around encase of an Angel attack Shinji took a moment to appreciate the view, he could see the mountains around him, untouched as they should be, the city not currently a giant rusted hole in the ground that had been caused by SEELE and the JSSDF when they had invaded the original Nerv HQ for Adam.

As the car stopped at the top of a hill, the position giving them a good view of the UN attack forces going at it strong, despite the Angel practically ignoring them as it tried to find the easiest way down to the incomplete Lilith. Shinji noticed Misato taking out a pair of binoculars as she watched the Fourth Angel make its way out of sight over the hill before putting down her binoculars and getting back into the car, as Misato was about to start it Shinji noticed the various VTOL's and what was left of the ground forces moving away from the Angel who seemed not to notice this at all before his vision was consumed by a blinding white light that could only be a N2 or N3 mine, _'N2 considering when it is.'_.

As the shock wave approached he felt Misato throw herself over him where he had ducked as soon as he saw the flash and it was silent for a second before the car was hit will the full force of the shock wave causing it to be thrown several dozen feet off the road as it did multiple sideways flips and rolls that only slightly stunned Shinji _'I've taken harder hit's in my Eva_ '.

As the light died down and the wind stopped screaming over the tipped car Shinji pushed himself up in his seat while making sure Misato didn't hit her head due to his sudden movement's, he'd managed to slink over to a window and slide out onto the ground where he pushed himself to his feet before offering a hand to Misato who was having a harder time getting out due to the fact that she was three inches taller than Shinji currently and her bust kept getting in the way whenever she tried the same hole Shinji had exited.

After taking a moment to steady himself and Misato, who seemed more affected by the blinding light and deafening noise that he did _'Not used to it I suppose. I've seen so many N2 and N3 explosions that I barely notice anymore.'_

"Thank you." Shinji said quietly, perhaps the first time he had properly spoken to Misato since she had died apart from when he had visited her grave-pole and mourned her while talking to her grave about how he was doing.

Misato looked down at him and let a cheery grin come across her face "Nah, it was fine yeah?" She said before turning around to look at her tipped car.

 _'God, just seeing her grin again, alive and safe makes all this feel worth it'_ Shinji just smiled at her. When he saw the car he braced himself against the ground and gave it the best push he could in his current state, the car rocked considerably but he was too weak to tip it himself right now. Seeing his effort Misato moved over and gave Shinji a nod before she started pushing, something Shinji copied a moment later causing the car to teeter before it slammed down onto its wheels, popping one and shaking one of the headlights out of its sockets.

She huffed at the state of her car before reaching for the boot, where she kept several spare tires and some duck tape for emergency repairs, while she was pulling the spare tire from the boot Shinji remembered something he was supposed to have done by now and reached into his backpack, contemplating hiding Misato's cross in there while he was at it before remembering that he wasn't going to be wearing a plug suit so he wouldn't have to worry about it for now.

After finding what he was looking for Shinji pulled out his ID and the letter from Commander Ikari. A simple one word summoning 'Come' that he remembered scaring the life out of him when he was a child. Grabbing the ID he made his way over to Misato "I suppose you want this?" He asked while presenting her his ID, being mindful of the pieces of old tire around his feet, he didn't want to trip.

She took a quick glance at it, absorbing all of the info on the page, only raising an eyebrow at the mostly destroyed letter from the Commander with a short comment of "Just like mine." before she moved on to the ID whilst making sure it was verified and after looking at it for a little while she passed it back over with another cheery grin and a nod.

"Kid, what's with the scar?" Misato asked as she noticed a long scar on the side of his hand while she worked to remove what little was left of the old tire.

"Which one." Shinji answered on reflex, so used to questions about them that he forgot that he wasn't supposed to have the many scars he had gained through the link with his Eva.

"You have more?" Misato tried to keep the concern out of her voice, not wanting to sound condescending but if the Third Child was abused then it could cause problems, this aside from her personal hate of child abusers.

Seeing the look on his face she decided to drop it and bring it up later she set another grin on her face and turned to Shinji "Help me with this?"

After she had managed to get her car fixed, with a little donation of batteries from the nearest recharge station for her converted electric car, they had made a relatively good pace towards a Nerv entrance he remembered being in this area, that being Misato's goal whilst she focused on her driving, probably a good thing considering that the car was barely holding together with duck tape and prayer, that not saying much considering that Shinji wasn't religious for obvious reasons.

The closer they got the louder the sounds coming from the city were, it seemed that the Fourth was finally starting to slowly regenerate the damage inflicted by the N2 mine. _'It's taken it longer than it usually does to regenerate from that sort of damage.'_ Shinji mused whilst considering what this could mean. Were the Angels weaker? Were they stronger but hiding it? Or had nothing changed since the last time?

"We're here." He heard Misato announce as he looked up from his thinking to see a large steel door slide into the ceiling allowing the car into what seemed to be an underground parking lot filled with black vans with the Nerv logo on the side. Misato pulled the car into an empty spot, when she ejected the keys half the framework fell from its place and clattered to the ground while the engine started steaming.

"Not a word."

"Hai Katsuragi-san." Was the straight faced reply, Shinji hiding his grin as he made his way towards what he remembered was the main entrance for this parking lot's layout.

As they made their way through several doors and into the inner corridors Shinji felt old memories of this place stir and remembered what happened here.

(Asuka screaming as she was impaled through the face with a lance of Longinus. Her left eye gushing blood.)

(Thousands of Rei giggling as they melted into LCL while Ritsuko laughed madly as her sanity shattered.)

(Rei's plug being crushed against the ceiling shattering Rei's left arm as Unit 00 went berserk upon activation.)

(Kaworu exploding in a spray of blood in Unit 01's clenched hand, Shinji realizing that he truly wished to die.)

Shaking the memories off with the air of long practice Shinji followed Misato slightly slower than before while skimming through the Nerv handbook that she had provided to see if anything notably different stood out. _'So far everything seems exactly the same. Nothing is different.'_ Had he not already known, he would have warned himself not to get overconfident and make a crucial mistake that could ruin everything but he couldn't help but feel optimistic.

When they turned a corner they got a full view of the Geofront in all its glory, the artificial light giving the whole construct a golden glow. "A Geofront." Shinji breathed out in awe, he hadn't seen a _true_ Geofront for a long time and no matter how long had passed this place was still as beautiful as he remembered it.

"The world's first Geofront and as of now the only one in existence."

"It's amazing." He said with a hidden knowing tone.

"Just you wait until you see what's here Shinji." Misato said with a grin, trying to anticipate his reaction to seeing a massive mecha face to face. Although why he was here she didn't know, only that she had been asked to pick him up and bring him down to Unit 01's cradle.

"Are we lost?" Shinji asked after several minutes of walking.

Misato was silent for a while as they entered the elevator before she sighed "Yes... I haven't been here long ok!" She snapped back with a slight grin on her face, seeing the laughter dancing in his eyes.

"Your a pretty cheerful kid you'know?"

"I'm not normally." Shinji answered honestly.

"Why is that?" Shinji was about to answer with a lie before the doors opened to show Ritsuko in a swimming suit with a lab coat thrown loosely over the top.

Misato immediately started trying to stutter out excuses but Ritsuko cut her off before she could get into the swing of it. "Lost again Misato?" Came the faintly exasperated reply to Misato's stuttering excuses.

"It's only been three weeks!"

Ritsuko seemed to scoff at the weak excuse before turning to the other person in the elevator with a raised eyebrow before turning back to Misato "This is the Third Child?"

"All scientist wear that here?" Shinji replied with another blunt question before Misato could reply back. Ritsuko's lip seemed to almost twitch and to the other two in the elevator it felt like that was the equivalent of a hearty laugh.

"No, because Misato got lost I had to exit Unit 01's cradle to come and get you before you waste any more time."

While rest of the trip was taken in silence, Shinji was recalling what happened next and was trying to plan how to deal with his father and Misato was looking at Ritsuko like a kicked puppy begging for attention.

"You're nothing like your father." Ritsuko broke the silence with her observation "You have the same confidence, the same knowing air but your attitude is a far cry from his."

Just hearing his father being mentioned felt like someone had burnt him with a hot poker, "Don't mention him to me." He snapped back at her, his good mood gone. What his father had done might have never happened but for him it was still merely twenty minutes ago and it hurt. It hurt what little love he still had to know that his father was so far gone to do what he had done without a second thought.

The other two were surprised, Misato more so as she had known him for longer, he seemed like a cheerful kid but it looked like mentioning his father seemed like an easy way to rile up his temper.

In his head Shinji was mentally berating himself for letting his temper go like that, he knew better, that losing your temper could get you or those around you killed.

After what now felt like too long the elevator finally stopped on the designated floor and stepped out of the awkward silence into total darkness, the only way he knew where he was going was that he could, and had in fact had to run around his Eva cradle in pitch black to manually enter his Eva when the Geofront's power was knocked off at one point during an Angel attack.

He walked through the darkness, only peripherally aware of the footsteps of the other two as they followed after him and the shuffling of the workers around the room as they waited for Commander Ikari to allow them to continue in the light.

After awhile he stopped roughly where he felt he should before the lights were suddenly flicked on to full power and he was blinded for a brief second as his eyes automatically sought out his Eva. When his eyes adjusted he was treated to the sight of Unit 01 standing there in all of its glory, it's paint still fresh from maintenance, the eyes seeming to bore straight into his as happiness grew in his eyes, having to restrain it from his face _'Welcome back, old friend.'_

He felt happy before his mood dropped like a rock as he saw Commander Ikari standing there, above his Eva. Feeling a frown want to slide onto his face but restraining it with effort he gazed up into those eyes, cold, calculating and merciless. Those were the eyes of a man who was willing to do anything to get what he wanted and had done nearly anything to do so in the past.

Their staring contest lasted for what felt like ever but could only have been a mere 30 seconds before Shinji broke the silence "Why have you called me here Commander Ikari?"

The commander made not even a slight twitch before he replied smoothly "I have use for you."

A long time ago, that would have crushed his spirit and left him open for manipulation. But he had long since found his own worth and let a slight frown show "You are a bold man to make that statement after what you did." Shinji didn't feel anything about his abandonment by the Commander anymore, but it would seem odd if he went too far out of character and it opened the playing field significantly.

The Commander completely ignored what he said seeing it as irreverent, and went straight to the point. "You know why you are here?"A statement.

"You want me to do something with this. Unless you brought me here to gloat." Shinji knew he was stepping on thin ice, but at the moment he was the only person who could pilot Unit 01 and Gendo knew that. It was why he was brought here.

"You are to pilot Unit 01 and destroy the enemy."

"And if I say no?" Here was the time of truth, to see if Rei still had her memories or not.

Gendo stared down at his son for awhile longer before seeing that he would need another form of leverage, clearly his son had grown some backbone since he had last seen him. "Bring in Rei."

Ritsuko spoke up then, ignoring the look on Misato's face over the back and forth "Rei is still in critical condition, she can barely pilot in my most generous estimations."

Gendo only started at her until she bowed her head and turned to make the call.

Shinji stood staring at Gendo, their gazes locked, ironically both waiting for the same thing while they ignored the shaking caused by the now regenerated Angel. Their staring match was interrupted by the sound of wheels turning as the hospitalized form of Rei Ayanami came around the corner.

Shinji felt his breath catch, there she was, still as beautiful as he remembered her. His eyes went over her form, noting her injuries and passing over them to her eyes, where he maintained his stare until she passed next to him and he reached out an arm to halt the gurney. This making it's passenger open her uncovered eye, it slightly out of focus for a moment before immediately shot to his own, passing words between themselves by staring in each others eyes, a form of communication available only to those who knew the other completely, heart and soul.

Shinji felt himself kneel at the side of the gurney while feeling the eyes on his back, they didn't matter to him, Rei was all that mattered right now.

"Rest." He whispered to her as he ran a hand softly along her face lulling her to sleep again with the practice of a thousand nightmares. Feeling the Commander's gaze burn into his back Shinji stood again and turned back to face him, but before he could say anything there was a shuddering and the light fixtures rattled ominously before they snapped, sending metal frame screeching down, right where Rei lay.

Without thinking about it, Shinji grabbed Rei and pulled her off the gurney as gently as he could in the situation, just in time as the light crushed the bed into scrap. Before they could even breath a sigh of relief there was another rattling as the Fourth Angel started actually trying to bore his way to Lilith, seeing it as the fastest way.

Setting Rei down in his lap, he felt her tense in her sleep before she relaxed, knowing she was safe in his presence even as several light's fell from the ceiling, one of them clattering off the shoulder of Unit 01 with another heading straight for Shinji and Rei. Shinji just looked Gendo straight in the eyes as his death fell from above him, and just as it was about to hit him there was an unholy screeching sound of metal being twisted and suddenly he was dropped back into darkness, this time from a very different source, as Unit 01's arm stood hovering over him. It having broken free from its restraints without a thought from Shinji as it moved to protect him and Rei.

Gendo gave a hidden smirk, spine or not Shinji could be coerced by threatening Rei, someone who was utterly replaceable to him. And the reaction from the Eva told him that the soul inside would do as he wanted, protect Shinji, killing Angels in doing that duty.

Shinji pursed his lips as he stared up at his Commander, he knew what was going through his _superiors_ mind and it grated on him to think Rei would be put in danger again if he didn't pilot, something he was admittedly going to do anyway, at this point it was all he knew how to do.

Misato came out from under cover as the shaking weakened, the Fourth not bothering to cause explosions as he melted his way down slowly, and started to protest about putting an untrained child into a combat scenario where his life would be in danger.

"I'll do it." Shinji said, cutting off Misato's words. "I'll pilot."

Gendo held back a pleased smirk, pleased to know that he could still manipulate his son as he wanted, even if he didn't know that Shinji did it because he wanted to, not because the Commander made him.

* * *

Misato stood overlooking the command room, watching as they did all of the preparations for an emergency activation test. Unit 01 hadn't even been activated yet so they were going to have to run the diagnostic for it while Shinji was in the Plug, something that might cause mental contamination if they weren't careful.

"Alright Shinji, enter the Plug now." Misato said as she kept her eyes on a diagnostic that was on the readout in front of her. They didn't have enough time to outfit Shinji with a plug suit so they were going to have to hope that the A-10 clips were enough for him to gain control over his Eva.

"Hai." Once Shinji had entered the Plug it was sealed and set into position.

"Eva diagnostic running, batteries fully charged."

"Connecting main power."

"All circuits transmitting power."

"Inserting Entry Plug." Misato felt her breath catch at that, were they really going to send a kid to fight that monster? Several seconds later her answer came as Commander Ikari was raised on a platform from the floor and took his place at the top of the command center.

"Plug fixed in place."

"Initiating First Stage connection." The readout on Misato's screen suddenly blinked and showed an interior view of the Plug, showing Shinji sitting there as if it was the most natural thing in the world, as if he had done this hundreds of thousands of times before. _'Does anything faze this kid?'_ Misato thought in slight admiration, he must have balls of steel.

* * *

The second he entered the Plug he felt at home, in the recent years he had started to spend more time in his Eva than he spent out of it, and while being outside was nice nothing could compare to the feeling that came from sitting in the command seat of an Eva.

Shinji relaxed into the pilot's seat as he felt the Plug move before it started spinning, the internal dampers working to make it seem like he hadn't moved but he could feel the slight movement's in his Plug, as he readied himself for the next stage in the connection. When he felt the Plug stop, there was a brief moment of silence before he heard the heavy thud that was the Eva's head and shoulders retracting to protect the pilot.

As he was waiting for the LCL he noticed the two-way video feed that exited to Misato's desk, he gave her a small smile and settled down in his seat. Several seconds later he heard a tech announce that they were filling the Entry Plug and the Plug started hissing as LCL started to flood in.

Shinji looked at the LCL with a bland expression as instructions on how to breath it in came from the link, he now knew what LCL was and the accumulated years he had spent submerged in it felt significantly more disturbing than they did before. The slight smell of blood flooding his nose and mouth as it past his head where he took a deep breath and completely filled his lungs with LCL, something he had found made the transition from breathing to relying on the liquid easier.

He heard the technicians calling out their roles as they completed them over his link.

"Initiating secondary contacts."

"A-10 Nerve connection normal." As he heard this he readied himself to start the connection to the Eva, the LCL in his Plug becoming transparent and the Plug around him flashed in a technicolor display that never ceased to catch his attention.

"Set the thought configuration to Japanese."

After several more seconds of rapidly shifting lights Shinji felt and saw the walls of the Plug shimmer and fade away revealing several different viewing windows that were the Eva's eyes and senors.

"Synchronization rate 63.7%" Hearing that Shinji frowned, he knew he had a better Synch rate than that and as he thought that, he pushed against the presence in the Eva demanding it's attention, pushing it until it would acknowledge him as the pilot. While he was doing this he completely missed the astonished looks of the crew personnel as his Synch rate started to steadily climb, until it seemed to hit a plateau at 98%, a number he knew he could break if he desperately needed to push the Eva beyond human limits.

"Amazing. Near perfect Synchronization." Ritsuko breathed out, the highest synch ratio ever recorded. _'This one was a keeper.'_

"Harmonics are normal. No disturbances detected."

Shinji sunk into his Eva, its arms became his arms, its legs became his legs, its body became his body. This was the closest he could get to being one with the Eva without being broken down into LCL and absorbed into it. Something he supposed happened to the presence in the Eva.

"He was born to pilot an Eva." Misato mumbled out in shock even as she felt the gaze of Commander Ikari on her back, almost feeling the smug 'I told you so' in it.

"Prepare launch." Misato ordered, feeling her confidence in his survival return now she could see his synch rate being so high.

"Primary lock bolt's disengaged." A thud as several multi-ton bolt's left his Eva's shoulders and the armor fell into place.

"Disengaging umbilical bridge." A slight droning as the bridge was pulled away.

"Secondary lock bolts disengaged." A whirling as his arms locks were removed.

"Disengage primary and secondary restraints." Another thud as the wall restraints holding his remaining arm was removed.

"Internal batteries charged, external power normal." A crackling as power hummed through the external power cable.

"Move Eva Unit 01 to the ejector pad." came the voice of someone he vaguely remembered, Maya a nice girl who was an excellent technician and had a crush on Ritsuko. He'd have to subtly encourage that, it would be good for them both.

Shinji felt the Eva move along the tracks until it came to a halt as it's shoulder plates connected to the Eva launch system. He was only waiting for the launch order to be sent now.

"Can we really do this?" Misato asked. Confidence in him or not it would be better if his life wasn't in danger at all.

Gendo looked down at Misato and she shivered under his gaze "Of course. Unless we defeat the Angels, we have no future."

The link was silent for a short time before he heard Misato order the launch, where he was suddenly crushed into his seat as the Eva was accelerated towards the surface at several hundred miles an hour.

"Now Shinji, the first thing I want you to do it to try and walk ok?"

But before he could answer, the Eva reached the surface through a slowly opening road. Sensing an incoming attack Shinji immediately dove into a roll to the right, tearing his shoulder plates from the lift even as it was annihilated by the Fourth Angels AT field in a column of flame.

In mid roll Shinji instinctively raised his AT field to deflect the explosion from damaging him, and when the explosion faded it revealed that the Fourth Angel had stopped its efforts to get to Lilith and instead had turned to attack the interloper, shattering the building next to it so it could gain a line of sight at where he would appear.

"AT field detected on the Angel and the Eva."

At this point Shinji ignored what they were saying, he would keep half an ear open encase something that really needed his attention cropped up but for now he needed to focus solely on his opponent. _'Let's see what you can do.'_ Shinji thought as he brought his hands up to his chest in a fighting stance as he watched the Fourth lumber around the corner it was on so they both stood on the same street.

"Shinji attack now!" He ignored their pleas as he focused on what he was doing, they might have thought he was frozen in fear but he was actually planning his next move.

After a strangle lull in the battle Shinji crouched down and leapt as high as he could, shattering the ground underfoot and propelling himself towards his target even as the Angel blasted it's AT field down the street below him like a raging storm, flattening all in it's way with a wall of force before it was stopped as Unit 01 landed boot first on it's exposed core, his AT field neutralizing the others as he knocked it to the ground. Shinji instinctively reached for the Progressive Knife with his right hand to where he knew it was equipped in his shoulder.

"The AT fields are neutralizing one another." Maya again.

"We've won." Fuyutsuki announced quietly to Gendo getting a nod in return.

As the knife came to his hand and activated with a hum, he brought it down as the Angel shifted, piercing through it's birdlike mask and slicing deep into the Angels chest, the blade going through and stabbing into the ground beneath it as the knife nicked the side of its core scoring a deep rivet through it. It was a futile effort though as within a second the knife was back out and already halfway to the exposed core.

The Fourth Angel seeing its incoming death screeched and quickly dissolved into bubbly goo that latched itself onto Unit 01 where it glowed a menacing red before its core exploded in a pyrotechnical display seen only before by nuclear weapons and the Second Impact, one that was muted as Unit 01's AT field spread around it and held it in place, forcing it high into the sky where it dispersed in a cross. Leaving a oddly perfect hole in the ground.

Despite his best efforts, the Angel is a massive being and when it died its AT field imploded causing the blood contained within to flow out, flooding the city as if a tsunami had come.

When Misato saw the Angels last ditch effort she clenched her hands so tightly that the metal railing in her grip let out a slight groan in protest before she let go, why was Shinji ignoring her? Was he dead? In the silence of the control room she waited anxiously. As the smoke cleared she could see the shady outline of Unit 01 standing tall, the techs around her cheering as she let out a shaky breath _'The first one down.'_

"Shinji?" She asked over the line as his camera feed cut out for a moment before the camera switched to the main power cords backup line. Wireless having been knocked out for a moment by the explosion.

Shinji was slowly coming back from his battle focus, finding that for some reason his hands were shaking and his 'breaths' of LCL were short. "Y-Yeah?" Came the reply, Shinji just now realizing that he was coming down from this body's first adrenaline rush.

Misato had obviously reached the same conclusion as his lifelines stabilized from where they had been jumping about before "Its ok, don't panic. Your just coming down from an adrenaline rush. Keep calm." Despite already knowing and doing this, Misato's motherly tone soothed something deep in him that he had forgotten that he'd had and he lent back in his seat, letting his body go limp for a moment before he moved his hands back to the butterfly grips.

"Shinji! What are you doing?" Misato asked in surprise as she saw Unit 01 start moving again "Let us come and get you. Don't push yourself!"

Shinji smiled as he heard her words, she barely even knew him and already she was worried for his safety "Its fine Katsuragi-san, I can move back, I still have my power cable." True, but his real reason was that he didn't want to be spotted leaving his Eva. He liked his privacy and having his status as a pilot in the open had garnered way more attention that he had wanted, assassins included.

Misato chewed on her lip for a moment before tapping something on her readout "Go here and attach your Eva to the rails, it will bring you back to your cradle." A blip appeared on his map, something he usually left turned off but for navigating it was great, it gave you a top down view of wherever you are and your surroundings, including the different things you could have the people at Nerv do, such as raising barriers, lowering and raising buildings and weapon drop-off points.

Shinji slowly made his way over to the docking point, thinking as he did so _'The Fourth acted like he usually does. The Angels have been scaled to the same strength they were before?'_. Mulling over his thoughts while being careful to avoid breaking the city anymore than he had, he locked into the dock let himself relax as the Eva dropped down into the depths of Nerv HQ, the world safe for another day.


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

 **AN: £2,583 is the average monthly wage for an active sergeant in the UK, this translates to ¥495,959.**

 **AN2: Fixed some German with the help of Matze.**

* * *

An unfamiliar ceiling.

Was the first thing Shinji noticed as he woke up, fully expecting to see the gunmetal grey ceiling of his secure room in the second Nerv HQ. In his groggy state his mind turned over where he was for awhile before he remembered what had happened.

"That actually happened?" He whispered to himself, finally having some time to recollect his thoughts now he wasn't being rushed about everywhere. The first memory that came back was the command crew of Nerv congratulating him over the link as he descended towards his cradle, the memory bringing a smile to his face. It was so different from last time, as he had crippled his Eva and caused massive property damage then.

The next thing that came to mind was him docking his Eva in the cradle, and being greeted by Misato who was quick to give him a hug before practically shoving him into the closest shower to try and wash the LCL off before the smell became permanent on his clothes. It was too late for him, he had spent weeks at a time immersed in LCL, he would always carry the scent of it with him.

After that he had found the nearest bed and crashed. He had been awake for more than two days, there was the fighting he had done before the Third Impact, The Third Impact itself and then having to coerce his Eva into syncing with him properly so he could fight another Angel, He felt that he deserved a rest.

Now that he had time to sit and think, the first thing he did was to check if Misato's necklace was still there, and it was. Seeing that everything was in order, he thought over what he could do, he could kill the Commander, but then SEELE would have Adam regardless. He doubted he could destroy Adam or Lilith, so the only thing that came to mind was to follow Gendo's plan until the time came and to split off and hide Adam from the world. Space perhaps?

Letting those thought go, they wouldn't do him any good right now, he'd have to wait until he could re-group with Rei and Asuka. _Misato should be nearby_ He thought, and she was. Sleeping in a room adjacent to his, somehow despite her having done nothing but sleep there it was a mess with clothes thrown everywhere and what looked suspiciously like Penguin footprints heading into the shower.

Not wanting to wake her, he wrote out a note on the back of the card he still had on him and left it on her forehead, snorting as she didn't even twitch. Having left his message he made his way to the only place left for him to visit, the hospital ward.

He managed to make his way there while only spotting one Section two agent, and she was sleeping. _Have they just given up?_ He thought before a more amusing answer came to mind, _Looks like Misato has plenty of new drinking partners._

He didn't begrudge them this short time of rest, in harder times he would get his hands on any sort of alcohol he could and share it with his fellow pilots. Sometimes to take the edge off and sometimes to get blisteringly drunk, a way to help them forget when they lost another friend, even if for a little while.

He knew what he was doing might be a bad idea, he shouldn't know how to get to the medical district of the Geofront but he needed so see Rei. Even if he remembered that she should be fine he couldn't help but worry, although he really shouldn't, he had seen her piloting in worse condition that she was right now.

Seeing the sign for the entrance of the hospital he sped up his steps and quickly made his way to where he knew she should be, remembering that she had been moved when he woke up last time. When he found her door he gave it a quick tap, waited a second and then tapped three times, with another tap at the end before he tapped his palm to the door. It might have seemed like a strange thing to do and it was but they knew that only another of them could produce the knock in the exact same way every time.

Having alerted Rei to his presence he pulled the door open and quietly closed it behind him, he wanted no interruptions, just to be in her presence for awhile longer. He made his way to her bed and sat on the stool provided where he leaned over and grasped her hand, feeling the controlled but slightly wild feeling that could only have been coming from Rei, he clasped it in both hands and lowered his head.

Letting his tears flow for the first time since he got here as he inhaled the smell that was Rei, not those clones, his Rei and he wept. Rei simply gripped his hand in hers, nothing needing to be said between them, they both understood the need for comfort. After awhile of just sitting there with her, he reversed their grip so he was holding her hands, not needing to look to know that there were silent tears flowing down her face just as there were on his.

She was suffering just as he was, but held it together for him so he could let it out, just as he now held it together for her to let her emotions out. After awhile of silence, basking in each others presence Rei looked up with a strange smile on her face "I was aware you know."

Shinji looked at her shaking, as his mind came to a conclusion that he didn't want to make.

"I saw as the world died, as every person's deepest fears or desires were turned against them, reverting them back to the LCL that birthed them." Rei looked up, the strange smile on her face breaking for one that showed so much pride.

"I saw your choice. If you had spoken a second sooner, everything would have ended."

Shinji shuddered as he recalled how _close_ he was to giving in, his mind latching onto the fact Rei was there with him as an anchor for his sanity. "Without the two of you, it wasn't worth living."

"But here we are, Alive. Thanks to you." A soft smile.

Shinji could feel his mind, frayed after the events of yesterday, slip away from the void of insanity, once again anchored with his Rei. Just as she could feel the same, her lonely existence defined by two glowing figures, Shinji and Asuka. They were her everything. Just as she and Asuka were his everything. And she and Shinji was Asuka's everything.

Shinji leaned close, avoiding the various injuries Rei had as he sought out a scar he was very familiar with, one just beneath her eye, caused by a glancing blow from the Tenth Angel with it's paper thin constructs that passed through Eva's like a hot knife through butter.

"What will they say about your scars?" Shinji asked, his were easy to explain away, Gendo had never watched him.

"Injuries from the failed activation of Unit 00."

"If you think that will work." Shinji was slightly uneasy, but he knew somehow Rei would get her way.

Running his finger over the thin scar, he pressed a kiss to it and drew back. "I need to go now, Gendo will be especially unhappy with me if he finds me here." Making his way to the door, when he reached to open it he turned his head and whispered back into the room "I love you." And with that he closed the door and started on his way back to his room, hopefully before he was picked up by Section two for vanishing on them.

* * *

Finding his way back to his quarters, he made his way back to his room, only to open it to a see a sight that still froze the blood in his veins to this day.

 _Misato is angry_ was the only thought he managed to get out before he was grabbed by the lapels of his shirt and pulled into his room, a sight that would start a rumor from a wandering tech that would haunt him for months.

"And where did you think you were going?" Gott, Misato was still just as scary as she was.

"If I said for a walk would you let me go?" Shinji said as he tugged at her arms, not willing to hurt her by forcing her arms off. At this Misato looked down and realized that she was still pressing his face into her chest, her glorious, just T-shirt covered chest.

Letting him go with in an abrupt moment as she felt heat rise to her face. She had been forcing his face into her... hem, lady parts "Ah, sorry about that I wasn't paying attention." She said as she scratched her head, not the best start.

"Its fine, you wanted me for something?" She hadn't asked for him yet, but she would, it was just easier to get it done without having to go through official channels.

The strange look she directed at him told him that she hadn't done so, but she shrugged it off easily enough with a grin that still somehow smelt like alcohol "Are you drunk?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. He wouldn't really be surprised if she was, but he was somewhat impressed that she had already managed to get drunk enough to function, that amount being enough to kill most grown men.

The slightly whiny no he received reminded him of the time when he had tried to make her go sober, not that he would try again if his taste buds had anything to say about it, considering that she punished him for forcing her sober by cooking everything she could get her hands on and guilt tripping him and Asuka into eating it.

Misinterpreting his horrified shiver for coldness, Misato ruffled his hair before tossing him a spare jacket that she had lying around for some reason and starting to pull her hair into a semi-presentable state. "Right kid, first things first. Commander wants to talk to you and Rits will be there too right?"

Before he could try and question he was cut off again "She wants to talk to you about some science techno-babble to do with the Eva, something about your sync ratio?" She questioned with a raised brow, not really knowing for sure but guessing from all the awed muttering that 98% was mighty impressive.

"Right." His answer seemed a little short to Misato but she guessed he was psyching himself for the meeting with his Father. While true it was for a different reason, he wasn't scared of the man, he was scared of what he would do to him. It would be so easy to take Misato's gun and kill him before they could react, admittedly doing so was a terrible idea seeing as it was purely Gendo that was hold back the force that was SEELE but alas, the heart doesn't care for logic when hurting.

As they made their way towards Gendo's office Shinji was running through different methods of keeping calm he knew, many of them he had learned to teach to Asuka but some of them he still used himself, even if he rarely lost his temper now that he had been hardened by years of combat.

His mind taking him on autopilot, knowing the vast expanse of the Geofront inside out, he was thinking through on what to say to the Commander. All Nerv personnel were provided with a card that acted as a debit card, credit card, ID card, key card and a GPS built into each one. Though the pilots weren't told that they were, with the exception or Rei, they were paid a monthly stipend of ¥500,000 for services rendered.

After running it through his head for awhile Shinji really couldn't find much leverage to try and put the screws on the Commander, he was in too good of a position and only the threat of him never piloting again would ever get Gendo to consider his point, that fact made redundant by Shinji knowing that Gendo would sacrifice Rei in an impossible battle if he didn't pilot. Just to make a point.

 _Guess I'm going to have to improvise_ It was what he was best at after all. Feeling a slight rumble he realized that the elevator had stopped at its designated destination, the doors opening to the sight of a seemingly empty room containing only a receptionist and nothing else. This was all a cover though, Shinji knew, having seen it in action that the room was laden with traps. Explosives at the elevator door, multiple retractable heavy machine guns that extended from the ceiling, walls and the floor, deadly neurotoxin, prototype energy weapons that were procured during the construction of the Eva, a ten second wait before a squad of armed guards could arrive outfitted with the best they could get their hands on, and finally the deceptively friendly looking receptionist who was a section two agent that was armed again with various tech.

Assaulting this room on foot was suicide, and even after they had left the old Nerv HQ the room remained unbreached to the bitter end, where it promptly self destructed, killing or wounding nearly a hundred SEELE personnel.

Putting his suddenly weak position if the Commander decided to get rid of him out of his mind, he strode forward as the elevator opened, the secretary only appearing to glance up before going back to her work, her mind still hyper-aware of everyone in the room. "Commander Ikari is waiting for you. Go on through." Taking that at face value, Shinji made his was to the large double doors that separated him from the overlord of Nerv.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out he pushed open the doors, ignoring Misato's slightly worried look being directed at him as he strode across the pitch-black room, something that seemed to take forever but only took at most twenty seconds before he stopped several meters away from the Commanders desk, where he sat with the Sub-Commander standing to his side and Ritsuko slightly in front of him.

Being shy won't help me here "You called for me?" Shinji said, keeping his eyes on the Commander as he did so, ignoring Kozo who seemed happy enough to loom where he was.

Gendo eyed him for a moment, as if trying to see into the depths of his soul. _Try all you want, you'll get nothing from me, I'll do anything to ensure their safety_ He thought, not noticing or remembering the fact that that was the exact same thing Gendo used to reassure himself, only for Yui.

As Gendo stared into the Third Child's eyes, he expected to see many things, fear of him, anger over what he did or depression as perhaps he had given up. But he didn't expect to be staring into what seemed like a wall of steel, tempered by the flames of hell and tested in combat with gods. As he tried to decipher what this meant for his scenario, Kozo looked between the two, a familiar feeling starting to form.

Their eyes are exactly the same. As he tried to wrangle the thought around his head, trying to figure out what had caused this, he took notice of Misato standing off to the side of Shinji, looking awkward at the staring contest between her scary boss and a kid who had just killed what was essentially a deity continued.

Doing the only thing he could do he pointedly cleared his throat, making both of their stares move onto him, before they passed over his suddenly still visage.

"You've changed." Gendo said as he looked into the hard eyes of his son, a slight sense of respect welling up in him. He didn't hate his child even when he was a spineless wimp, far from it in fact, it was just that his love for Yui far eclipsed his love for his son. So much so that it was barely even a blip on his radar.

As Shinji started into his Fathers eyes, he felt the same grudging respect, they might have hated each other with a fiery passion, but they could practically feel the tangible will coming from one another. Unknowing of the AT fields that all beings possessed poking and prodding at one another, pushed from their dormant state by sheer force of will. It would never function in any form of combat, or even be visible, but even normal people could feel it pressing down on them as they exerted their will on reality around them.

Shinji could see the well hidden fire in his Fathers eyes, the strength to stand against fate and defy gods, the same strength that had led him to many of his own victories. "You've changed." He said, mirroring his Fathers words. It didn't matter what he thought of his Father, they would stop the Third Impact.

They both blinked at the same time, some sort of understanding settling between them, as the frigid cold that seemed to permeate the office let off slightly.

Ritsuko took this moment of silence to move in, data-pad in hand, different information flying across the screen. "Shinji, today you broke the Synch ratio record by such a large margin that we need to move the entire scale around." Ritsuko looked up from her pad for a brief moment before going back to what she was doing "We noticed some strange brainwaves before your Synch rate started climbing, do you know anything about that?"

Shinji pondered what to say for awhile, before a devious idea came to mind "I'm not quite sure, when I heard my Synch rate I _knew_ that I could do better and I just kinda... Pushed, against the Eva, I needed control to fight so I thought that I would _force_ it to acknowledge me."

Ritsuko raised an eyebrow from where she was, ideas forming and being discarded as soon as they appeared in her mind. "You would describe Eva Unit One as alive?"

Shinji made himself appear to hesitate for a second before nodding "Yeah, I don't know what it it. But it just feels _alive_."

Ritsuko looked like she'd just had a brainwave and was hurriedly tapping away at her datapad as she slowly made her way out of the room, the seed of an idea firmly planted in her mind.

Shinji was pondering this before he was interrupted by the voice of his Father "Third. You are to live in the Nerv apartments located to the east of the school you will be attending. You will be escorted to your room when you arrive, all pertinent information will be supplied on site, Go."

"Hai." No more needed to be said, an understanding had been reached, information exchanged.

As they made their way across the darkness of the room, Shinji felt Misato's gaze burning his back, he supposed he'd have to try and explain the best he could. "Outside." He whispered to her, getting a nod in return. He didn't want to have that conversation in ears reach of his Father, he trusted him as far as he could throw Unit One, despite their _understanding_.

Making their way outside, he only had to shush her once before she got the picture, staring to the camera with a dopey grin on her face as she tried fruitlessly to annoy the person on the other side. Making their way into the halls Shinji tapped her on the shoulder and nodded his down the hall, a subtle way of telling her to stop being stupid.

After making their way down several halls, resulting in Misato getting lost again, Shinji lead her to one of the more secluded spots. It was an outside balcony that let you overlook a good portion of the Geofront, even better was that there were no cameras as the birds kept breaking them as they roosted on them, bird repellant spikes be dammed.

"As I'm sure you know, the Commander is a harsh man. Any perceived failure is _dealt with_." Misato nodded at this, having seen people go to Gendo's office and never return, supposedly being _transferred_. _Yeah, to the after life_ Misato thought to herself grimly.

"It turns out being a child is enough to count as a _failure_." Shinji said with a humorless grin, seeing Misato gasp as she got what he was implying. "He left, went to the door said how I was useless to him and was gone. In fact, I'm pretty sure if he could have he would have _removed_ me."

Letting that sink in for awhile, Shinji turned to walk away before he was grabbed by the shoulder, and despite expecting it he almost gave in to the twitch in his arm to turn around and deck whoever had grabbed him. Taking a slight calming breath he turned around to see Misato looking at him with something in her eyes. "You don't mind where you live?"

"No." He hoped this was going where he thought it was, he had been subtly trying to get her to think of this. "You umm." Misato bit her lip in indecision "You wouldn't mind living with me? The Nerv apartments are not the best place for a teenager." Seeing Shinji's raised eyebrow she squirmed, not realizing it was a teasing one instead of a 'are you stupid' one.

After letting her stew in her nervousness for long enough, he let a teasing smile come to his lips and enjoyed her reaction to the fact that he had been teasing. "I wouldn't mind at all Katsuragi-san-"

"Please call me Misato when we are off work." Misato said with a smile, she didn't mind people calling her by her name and Shinji seemed nice enough.

"Hai, Misato. I wouldn't mind. You seem like a good person and are one of the few to have shown that you care about my well being."

"Its settled then, you're coming with me for tonight, I'll talk to the Sub-Commander tomorrow about moving your permanent housing to where I am."

* * *

After making their way through town Misato lead them to an apartment not far from the schooling area and not far from Nerv HQ if they needed to rush back in case of an Angel attack. Not that he expected them to be forgiving enough to give him time to get to and into his Eva.

Having made their way towards Misato's apartment in casual conversation, they had somehow gotten onto the subject of old flames and as Misato was sharing tales of her old conquests at the top of her voice, something that he was sure was due tot he affect of the five cans of beer that she had downed on the way back. When she turned to Shinji and asked something that almost made him swallow his tongue "So Shinji-kun, any jealous girlfriends that little old me needs to watch out for?"

After recovering from feeling like he was going to choke he tried to say something along the lines of no but all that came out was a coughing that made Misato's quiet giggling raise her mood higher she started laughing aloud. "Aah, no. Nothing that you need to worry about." _They certainly won't be jealous_ He thought to himself, he was already starting to miss Asuka despite her only having been gone for a little over a day and a bit now. _I hope Asuka is alright, she is probably really confused. I need to get in contact with_ her. Shinji started running through some mental calculations in his head _It's toughly ten PM here so its around three PM there._ _This is irreverent, the only chance I have to contact her is to sue the school laptops and connect through the internet. And Misato sure as hell doesn't have an internet connection._

Shinji let out a sigh before accepting that he would need to wait another day to know if Asuka was ok or not. She was smart enough that if she did come back then the first thing should would have done is test to see if he and Rei had also come back in time. The fastest way to do that was to connect to a chat room that they both knew was _always_ empty and only accepted German posts and responses in addition to their own pass phrases so ensure it was actually them. Asuka also knew that the only way for him to realistically connect unobserved was to go to school and do so there. Somewhere that took him a entire day to get to considering he went straight into school after he was discharged from Nerv after the preliminary testing.

"Right, we'll set ground rules in the morning but for now go to sleep and make sure not to get between me and my beer in the morning."

"Hai Misato, I'll be loud in the morning to wake you up." A subtle punishment for drinking that she seemed to understand considering her glowering, being loud on purpose to make her hangover excruciating, hopefully that would help her learn not to drink so much _Wishful thinking on my part there..._ _When did I become such an optimist?_ Putting the thought off for later, preferably when he had Rei or Asuka nearby, he made his way to bed, quickly hiding Misato's bloody necklace under it before he laid his head down and the second he smelt the familiar smell of Misato's washing powder, something he could smell on everything of hers he was out like a light.

 _Soon, Asuka._

* * *

The first thing Shinji was aware of was the fact that he was comfortable, that he could smell something familiar _Probably one of the girls_ his sleepy mind supplied and that yesterday was a complete mess. When that thought crossed his mind he was suddenly wide awake, throwing off the covers as he sat up fully his mind taking a quick glance around are realizing _,_ _yes_ this was Misato's apartment and once again, _no_ that wasn't a dream and not even the most vivid hallucinations the Twelfth Angel could conjure felt like this. They never felt so real that he had to verify that it had happened again for the second time in a row, something he felt he was going to be doing with some regularity.

Hearing nothing and assuming that Misato was either too hungover to care for life or was still asleep, he made his way to the shower where he passed PenPen who only stopped to hive him a salute before moving on again. As he entered the shower and started basking in the water a sudden thought crossed his mind _We only taught PenPen how to do that after Misato... Was gone._ Thinking about her death still hurt even if he could visibly see her happy and alive. _I'll talk to Rei about it, she was a part of Lilith for awhile so she must know something about what happened._

Speeding up his shower he quickly jumped out and threw on a new school uniform that was lying around, the only clothes he had _Misato was p_ _ _robably supposed_ to give it to me at the other residence or something._ Having been dressed, he quickly made his way over to the oven and grimaced at what was available to cook _I think I might live if I can cook it right._ So he set to work trying to make something that didn't seem like it was trying to eat his soul.

As he was putting the finishing touches on the barely non-sentient meal, he was pretty sure he had caught it trying to escape when he wasn't looking, he heard Misato stumble out of her den muttering to herself as she did so. He greeted her with a smile that she returned without thinking before she almost spat out the beer she was drinking. In her still half asleep mind the only thing she could make out wa _s_ that she wasn't alone, not unusual considering her drinking habits. But what was unusual, even in her sleepy mind was that her _visitor_ was fourteen year old.

The thought made he stomach drop as she looked to her beer and back to the teenager that she had somehow gotten a hold of last night before she took a long swig. Shinji knowing her strange habits, shrugged it off as Misato being Misato in the morning, as he decided to let her wake up with the barely palatable food he had managed to conjure from the oven.

Misato accepted the food without thought, her mind slowly coming back to her as she came to her customary mildly drunken state, finally remembering the offer she had made when she had heard where Shinji was supposed to be living. _Right, didn't sleep with him then._ She thought with a relived sigh. With her first bite she froze, a rainbow of flavor exploding in her mouth as she ate what had to be the work of some sort of god.

"This... This is amazing!" Misato shouted, slamming her free hand to the table as she enjoyed the bliss that was Shinji's cooking.

"I didn't have much to work with, I'll need to get some proper food."

Misato felt her eyes widen "This can be better?"

Shinji let a smile onto his face "Much, I just need some proper ingredients."

With how quickly Misato moved Shinji thought for a brief moment she might have been an Angel in disguise as she latched onto him, beer in one had as she gave him a crushing hug. After letting her hug him for awhile, Shinji had to pry her off of him with the help of PenPen, who had emerged from his freezer to the sight of his stupid owner hugging the happy boy who used to be the mopey boy.

"Right Misato, I need to get to school now, do you mind driving me there for the first day so I can memorize the route?" He knew the route but she didn't know that.

Yawning and pushing into a stretch that made Shinji avert his eyes as some of her shorter clothes were pulled off _places_ "We've got a meeting with Rits today, I'll drive to to school on your first day when you're discharged, its on the way to one of the Nerv entrances anyway and I did take responsibility for you didn't I?"

After doing a quick cleanup of the dishes Shinji and Misato made their way over to the nearest entrance to Nerv HQ, passing his new school as he did so. Quickly making their way through the Geofront, helped no end by directions that Ritsuko had left at the entrance. Once they made their way to where Ritsuko wanted them to meet, _The medical center._ Misato was shuffled off to do whatever she did during the day and Shinji was put through a battery of medical tests, 'to ensure his health' they told him. _I'm sure it's not because they aren't curious about how I synced with the Unit One so easily._ He though sarcastically as they took another vial of blood for testing.

After the testing was done, some minor embarrassment over having to be naked for some of it, he answered what seemed like every question Ritsuko could fathom _What did it feel like to pilot? What was this presence i_ _n the Eva that you felt? Could you describe it? How did you Synch so easily?_

After enduring what had to be several hours of questions she eventually stopped with a curious look on her face before she directed him to a scanning machine where they took the measurements for the Plug suits, once again naked. Less bothered this time though as he had done this several times before when he had outgrown his previous Plug suit.

After having his measurements taken and putting his clothes back on, he was directed to the changing rooms where he was told to wait for them to come back. After about an hour they supplied him with his new Plug suit, the familiar blue comforting to his eyes as they told hm to get changed. Quickly changing into his Plug suit with the ease of having done something thousands of times, he put his clothes away into his locker and made his way out of the other end of the locker room, where it exited into the Eva cradles.

Following the directions given over the PA system he made his way over to where his Eva had been outfitted for sim combat, reveling in the comfort of wearing something that was made _precisely_ for his body and ignoring the naked feeling that came from also wearing something so thin and well fitting. When he entered Unit One he felt that comforting presence that made him smile, something that stayed with him for the rest of the weeks testing. They ran him through every form of test that they could safely do, ranged combat, melee combat, acrobatics, it didn't matter what he did he excelled with the ease born from repeated practice. Something that stunned them all, to them he really _was_ born to pilot an Eva, it seemed like his life's purpose.

Seeing one of their pilot's give such a show and taking into account his somewhat easy win on the Fourth Angel yesterday, morale around the base was sky high, the feeling that _they could do this_ was heavy in the air.

Seeing everyone around him so happy made Shinji smile, it was temporary, but you need to take happiness when you could or you would end up as a husk of your former self.

While everyone was in a good mood, Ritsuko was deep in her focus, looking through terabyte a after terabyte of data. Shinji had presented her with a challenge whether he knew it or not, Eva didn't normally act like this and she wanted to get to the bottom of this. She made another cup of coffee for herself as she predicted many sleepless nights to come.

* * *

After resting for the night Misato set off to Nerv and to drop Shinji off at school, it didn't take long, only a couple of minutes in the low-traffic area that was Tokyo-3. After giving Misato a quick goodbye and for her to tell him that someone from Section Two would pick him up, she went on her way as Shinji made his way to the schools main entrance.

Talking a moment to look around, seeing teenagers just being teenagers, Shinji felt a peace that he hadn't felt for a long time. That what he was doing was the right thing, no matter what others might say in his situation. Taking a moment to gaze across the school ground he finished memorizing what he could. Making his way towards the school, he passed through the crowds of energetic teenagers with a smile as they completely ignored him, his status as an Eva pilot still unknown to them _The way it would stay if he had anything to say about it._

Making his way through the crowds, he spotted his room _Class 2-A_. Pushing his way through the thinning teenagers around him, he clamped down on his urge to fight when he felt someone grab his arm before it was let go, having been mistaken for someone else in the corridor.

After getting through the mess that was school corridors _I'll get here earlier next time to avoid that,_ he made his way into his class his eyes taking in the familiar room as he scanned its occupants. Toji, Kensuke, Hikari and several other students that he knew were going to be leaving soon after the second battle of Tokyo-3. As his eyes were scanning the room, they came across someone who he didn't recognize. _I've never seen her before. Another change in the past perhaps?_ Ignoring this addition, he made his way to an empty seat

As he sat down next to where Rei would sit when she got back _She'll be healed soon_ he took stock of his classmates to see if anything significant had changed with them. Toji seemed happy and relived about something _His sister must have made it out fine_. Kensuke was nattering away to Toji about the rumors flying around his fight with the Fourth. Hikari was in full class rep mode so he couldn't tell if the glances she was shooting at Toji were to see if he was being good or if she was still crushing on him. Something Asuka had accidentally shared with him in the middle of a rant after she had to spend the entire day listening to Hikari swooning over Toji.

Then there was that new girl, she seemed really fidgety the second he had turned his attention to her and was trying desperately to avoid his gaze. _Was she afraid of him?_ No, he'd never met her before, but she seemed to know who he was. Narrowing his eyes at her as she seemed to look at him with a knowing gaze even as she tried to squirm under her seat to be out of his sight. _A Section Two agent? No, they would have announced their presence to me to avoid problems._ Something the various Section Two staff that worked in the school did, in case he needed their protection or to have easy access to the Third Child by Nerv in case of an emergency

 _What was up with her?_ Deciding to put it out of his mind, he'd think about it later, he moved his attention to the laptop in front of him. His way of getting a hold of Asuka. Glancing around to make sure no one was looking, ignoring that strange girl again, he logged in using the account provided to him earlier that day. Once he was in he opened up the internet and found his way to a little known proxy that he used from time to time, it was a good way around basic security systems such as the schools.

Once he was routed through he proxy he made his way to the chat side, watching as it seemed to take forever to load, a mix of nerves and the fact that proxies slowed down loading times. When the site finally loaded he went straight to the German chat room with one person in it. Loading into the room and making up a false name he typed the first part of their confirmation that they made up based on wherever they were.

'Schule, Lila 01.' (School, Purple 01.) He was at school and his Eva was the Purple Unit 01

'Scharlachrot, A-10' (Crimson, A-10) She was in her room as it was completely red, crimson. A-10 for the piloting headset she used to style her hair and proclaim she was a pilot.

Having confirmed that it was Asuka Shinji let out a shaky breath, he didn't know if he could go back to before Asuka had let he and Rei in. It would have broken him to see her so hurt and angry again and typed out a message.

'Ich habe dich vermisst.' (I've missed you.)

'Ich dachte, du wärst weg.' (I thought you were gone.)

'Geht es dir gut?' (Are you all right?)

'Mein linkes Auge kann wieder sehen. Es ist verwirrend, aber es scheint nur temporär zu sein. Ich kann das Schwarze am Rande meiner Sicht schon sehen.' (My left eye can see again. It is confusing, but it seems to be only temporary. I can already see the black on the edge of my vision.)

'Ich werde sehen, ob ich sie nicht davon überzeugen kann, Einheit 02 früher zu senden. Ich möchte dich so früh wie möglich wiedersehen!' (I'll see if I can not convince them to send unit 02 earlier. I want to see you again as soon as possible!)

'Reden wir morgen wieder?' (Talk to you tomorrow?)

'Wenn ich kann.' (If I can.)

With words exchanged they both shut down their laptops, deleting their search history as they did so. They didn't want anybody to know they were communicating, it could lead to awkward questions that they couldn't answer. Now in a much better mood, a lot of the tenseness having left his shoulders he looked up to the school room as the teacher came in and focused on what he had missed from his education last time while his mind filled with thoughts of the future. Not noticing the girl whose name he never got looking at him strangely before she tried to focus on her own work.

* * *

 **First things first. No, I'm not shipping Shinji with the girl.**

 **Right, now that's out of the way, please tell me what you think.**

 **And can any German readers please make sure I translated this correctly? I had to use Google translate and that thing is unreliable as balls.**


	4. Chapter Three

**Chapter 3**

 **Next chapter here for you, with an extra dose of Misato for your viewing pleasure.**

 **Sorry that it took so long but its here now!**

* * *

After getting used to the school rhythm, the rest of the week seemed to slide by Shinji, and despite his best efforts he'd had no success in having Misato ' _Enlighten_ ' him about Unit 02 and its pilot. He couldn't come out and say he wanted Unit 02 to be moved to Tokyo-3 because that was information he shouldn't know, so instead he subtly prodded Misato about the possibility of there being more Eva to fight, as one working Eva and another non-functional one wasn't enough if two angels came at once, something he knew that they _could_ do if they were pressed. Before the world had ended, the Angels typically attacked in packs of three or four, anymore than that and they would start doing more damage to each other than they would do against them.

In the end his prodding was for naught and he hadn't been ordered back to Nerv HQ for any Synch tests so he had no reason to be there, where he might find information to coax them into sending Asuka over sooner. Shelving that idea for the moment, he turned his attention back to integrating himself into this time. He enjoyed his time with Misato, joking and teasing her as she did to him. He tried to interact with the people around him in school but they were so innocent that he felt that he would corrupt them if he spent too long with them, it was part of the reason he enjoyed Misato's company, she had suffered as he had. She _knew_ what it was like.

Looking around at his class mates all it did was remind him of what he had done. In his time he had killed hundreds of Angels and hundreds of thousands of Humans, cannon fodder that SEELE used against the pilots. In the beginning they had gone out of their way to avoid them, but as time passed they realized that the Humans they left behind would then go on to attack the surroundings and Nerv itself, that being how they lost the original Nerv HQ. Once they realized this, they were forced to hardened their hearts and when they next went to combat the angels they massacred every human that accompanied them, their frail forms and weak weapons literally nothing to the might of the Eva.

Misato might never have killed, though he suspected she had. She knew suffering, she had lived with it for years and somewhat overcame it. When he looked into her eyes, behind the bright cheery glow he could see the depths of darkness she held, her eyes told the tale of her pain and her triumph more than words ever could.

* * *

A week had passed at school, his efforts to rejoin with Asuka crawling along and him becoming increasingly isolated from his classmates. Admittedly not something he minded terribly, but something buried deep below the atrocities he had committed was slowly withering away, the walls in his mind that had kept him sane reflecting any attempts at social interaction.

The sound of footsteps pulled him from his ruminations as he glanced up at his door just as Misato barged through in her customary manner, completely ignoring any and all sense of privacy or logic.

"Shin-chan" She joyfully chirped out as she grabbed him by the arm and started pulling him out of his room, Shinji not offering any resistance knowing that when Misato wanted to talk with you, _you had a talk with her_.

Letting her pull him through the house, if you could call it that. They both made their way to the sofa where he was unceremoniously dropped onto it like a sack of potatoes as Misato practically fell onto her side, causing the entire sofa to creak.

"How old is this sofa?" Shinji asked with a raised eyebrow, getting a weak slap on the arm back as she got the subtle jab at her weight.

"Not as old as you, Granpa." She replied with a teasing grin. That was another annoying thing, he was so serene and never seemed surprised by anything so they had started calling him Granpa, because he acted like someone sixty years older than he was.

Shinji quietly grumbled about that under his breath, he wasn't old dammit, he was just experienced in the way of the world. "Why have you dragged me out of bed so suddenly? I though it was the other way around for you?"

Taking his teasing like a champ she grinned as she leaned over into his personal space, pushing herself against his side "Oh, and what would you know about that?" She said with a husky whisper, trying to freak him out and finally get a glorious reaction from him.

Without noticing, Shinji stopped paying attention as he remembered the night he shared with Rei and Asuka, falling back into old memories.

Misato was sitting there for a good ten seconds, steadily growing more annoyed as he ignored her before she finally gave up and laid back into her corner of the sofa. Just as she was about to say something she noticed that his eyes were foggy, like has wasn't there at all. It clicked in Misato's mind then _Not so innocent after all Shin-chan?_ Cackling in her mind about all the possible way she could tease him now she reached over and gave him a rough punch to the shoulder, not enough to bruise but enough to hurt.

She wasn't expecting him to immediately grab that arm, twist it and be halfway to breaking it before she could blink. Realizing that it was an ingrained reaction rather than an action, she let her arm go limp, signifying no threat to his subconscious. As his eyes cleared of old memories he found himself holding Misato's limp arm in a tight grip with his elbow cocked to break it. He quickly let go of her arm thinking he _had_ broken it and shouting at himself in his head.

"Shin-chan its fine, you didn't break anything. It was my fault for surprising you." _Another question to ask you now though, nobody was that twitchy unless they've had to fight_ _before._

"Aah, sorry about that. Old habits die hard you'know?" Shinji said back with a sheepish smile, he had done the same thing with his fellow pilots before he had gotten used to them invading his personal space.

Misato eyed him strangely again, _Old habits indeed_. Flashing him a reassuring smile she stretched out her arm before she settled back into the sofa and grabbed a beer from the unit. "Now that we've got a little spare time, I thought we should do some sharing. I tell you stories, you tell me stories. Get to know each other a bit." Seeing him relax into the sofa made Misato think, _This whole carer thing isn't so bad_ _, sure he's a bit strange but he could be worse. His file said he was on suicide watch and that he might as well have had the life of sponge._

Little did she know that had things been slightly different, such as the other pilots not returning, he would already be dead. He had planned to commit suicide in the fight with the Third Angel if Rei didn't know who he was. He would rather die than make those two suffer again, considering the fact that the Third Impact seemed reliant on him piloting Unit 01, he felt that he could avert it entirely by killing himself. By killing himself before they met him his death would also have no impact on either of them, he truly thought that he could have done no harm to them by committing suicide.

Shinji thought he might as well start off, no point in giving Misato time to stew, it would only make her grumpy. "Where to start... Hmm, might as well start from common ground. I hate my dad, he's an asshole, in the top three of worst dads of all time and I wouldn't shed a tear if something _happened_ to him. You?"

Misato grinned hearing the Commanders son tearing into him. While she might not have hated the man, she did think he was an asshole who was probably mentally unstable. "I don't like your dad but he's my boss, I hope nothing _happens_ to him while he still pays me. I've been friends with Ritsuko since we were both in collage."

Shinji grinned as the perfect response to that came to mind "I knew there was some tension. Just didn't know it was from an old _friend_." The way he emphasized the word friend made it blatantly clear what he was insinuating. Ignoring her reflexive 'its not like that', apparently she had been asked that enough to have said it on reflex, _perhaps there was something there back in the day_. Ignoring the disturbing thought he plowed on with his end of discussion "I hate fighting, I only do it if I have to." _Even if its the only thing I know how to do._

He had missed years of education as the school was destroyed in the fight against the Angels, he had then spent the next seven years in nearly constant combat. The only things he had been taught were things that he had either picked up himself or Asuka had taught him. Asuka had been a massive help in that department, considering the fact that she had _graduated_ collage at the ripe age of 14. Even with her help, he and Rei would never stand a chance of graduating anything complicated, they understood most concepts but had nothing in theory or practical experience. Piloting their Eva was _literally_ the only thing that they knew how to do, it was their life and looked to be their future until they died of old age or battle.

Hearing that made Misato raise an eyebrow and almost made her blurt out her question about the scars. _No, w_ _ait for a better time_. "I'm not all that bothered about fighting." Misato paused for a second to think of what she should share, nothing felt like it was something she would divulge to someone she didn't know though. _I guess that I'll just have to get to know him then_ _, besides, this might get him to open up about his own conquests_. "In my younger days I almost got married." There, she had said it.

Shinji blinked for a moment before his mind connected Kaji with this, _I had always wondered about that_. Now for a leap of faith "I love them." Cryptic enough to keep her bothered and it gave her literally no information. "I think Ritsuko is a bitch."

Misato almost choked on her beer as she heard that before she burst out laughing at the unexpected answer, Shinji was so quiet most of the time that it could be easy to forget that he was there and to hear him say something so out of character tickled her funny bone. _I get it. Don't ask questions, he was very subtle about it though._ "She can be." She made out between her dying laughter, finally managing to stop shaking her beer can about as it almost spilled several times. "She's way smarter than me."

"So is PenPen." A squawk of from the kitchen interrupted his grin as PenPen poked his head around the corner, wearing some form of glasses and holding what looked like a newspaper in his flipper, his retractable claws clamped around it. "I think Maya fancies Ritsuko."

Misato felt her eyes brighten at that, teasing material and gossip in one. _Oh yes, this one is a keeper._

"Not a word you hear me." Shinji said as he sat up properly, trying to get his seriousness across. "I think its a serious thing, more than a crush."

 _Ah, that explains that._ Misato understood that feeling all to well, she had felt that when she pushed Kaji away. "Not a word from me." The idea with Maya and Ritsuko together was too cute for her to pass over and she always reveled in being a matchmaker. It helped her forget her loneliness by helping another couple coming together.

They spent another couple of hours or so chatting about small, meaningless things to relax for awhile. After she had just finished sitting down again in her chair, she couldn't seem to find a comfortable spot now. Glancing up at the clock on the wall she felt her eyes widen, _It was nearly one in the morning._ Misato let out a sigh as she push herself to her feet "Fun as this was, I need to get some sleep before work tomorrow and you need to do the same." Misato paused as he was getting up and when he was halfway to his feet she opened her mouth again "Unless you're trying to avoid your fangirl?"

Almost slipping onto the floor in surprise as he cursed, causing Misato to grin at making him slip up, a rare occurrence. "You uh, know about that?"

"Yeah, I think its cute. You're very own stalker, and you didn't even need to flash your Pilot status around." Misato felt a strange feeling that she could only tentatively proclaim, maternal pride. _Don't think about it_. It wasn't surprising though, Shinji had the looks and the sort of self-sufficient but caring personality that was very appealing to women. She did approve of his choice to keep his pilot status to himself though, there were literally no benefits to having such a huge security leak.

Shinji had a smile on his face as he felt a warm feeling in his chest, a feeling he had become somewhat familiar with as the years passed and his relationship with his partners advanced. _This is what it feel like to have somebody care for you, for no other reason but because they do._ Shinji felt old memories stir, reminding him of the last time he had seen Misato. _She really is an amazing woman, she's just so motherly that you could bask in it._

Shaking his ruminations away he turned to get ready for bed, the warm feeling not leaving him as he fell into a deep sleep. Pleasant dreams of a time without Angels, a time of peace.

* * *

When he arrived at his classroom Shinji was somewhat surprised to see Rei in her place by the window, she was out of hospital early. _Was it this fast last time?_ Rei had always healed quickly, something she could attribute to being quarter Angel, but it seemed like she had pulled a rush job to get out as early as she had.

As he stepped into the room, his eyes met hers and they stared at each other for awhile, drinking in the sight of the other completely unharmed. Eventually they had been standing there for so long that when someone uncomfortably shifted in their seat, unnerved by their staring contest that they broke away from each other. Shinji made his way across the room, his strides eating up the distance between them as he made his way to his seat beside her.

Sitting down in his usual seat, he turned and looked at Rei again a smile starting to creep up on his lips. "Hello Rei, its been awhile. I've missed you." His voice said more than words could.

Rei inclined her head, keeping to her old personality of an ice block, slightly thawed as it was and to the shock of the class she responded. "It has been longer than I would have liked." Rei paused for a moment before he dipped his head slightly "Shinji." There was no point in trying to hide their 'closeness', so they thought to disguise it as friendship.

Shinji gave her a smile as he sat down in his seat, ignoring the furious whispering of the students around him as they wondered how he knew Shinji or why the 'ice queen' was so friendly with him.

As the day went on it was soon lunch time and as Shinji stood he looked at Rei nodded, knowing that she would get the message. Several minutes later they were both on the school's rooftop, sitting there in silence as they enjoyed the perpetual summer of Japan, something that was a shock to them when they visited Europe and discovered that yes, _winter was cold._

Finally getting a private place to chat, the Section two agents couldn't watch them without them seeing. "Do you know how this happened?"

Instead of answering, Rei sat there for awhile longer, basking in the sun. "Lilith was a god. When she was complete she could have done anything. She needed you to finish the scenario as you were the only thing holding her ascension back. In doing that she would have to do whatever you wanted, as you were the holder of Adam, her other half." Rei smiled. "She could never resist Adam's commands."

Shinji let out a sigh, _The only reason I returned was because of a loophole. Not because of any merciful beings._ "How are you feeling after your separation from Lilith?" He asked softly, it was a tender subject considering the fact that she had essentially _died_.

Rei's face scrunched as she thought of it and a ghost of a shiver went down her spine. "It was... Not pleasant." No need to let him know it left her in agonizing pain, he would feel guilty over it for months. "I learned a great deal in the brief time that I was Lilith's conduit. Many things I didn't want to."

Shinji smiled and reached over to touch her cheek "It was worth it in the end, we're back and can do what we do best. Kill Angels." Shinji opened his mouth as he remembered something. "Ah, do you know why some things have memories and some don't?" It was something that had been vexing him for days.

"The Angels are resistant to Lilith's power's, their AT field helped shield their minds even if it couldn't hold it back completely. And I imagine that several humans might have slipped through if they were currently half way through being rendered into LCL."

"Speaking of humans, there is this strange girl in class, I don't remember her being there and she acts like she knows me despite the fact I have no clue who she is."

Rei was silent for a moment, presumably trolling through the memories and information she had gained as a part of Lilith. She frowned after a second of thinking. "She should not be here, she does not belong."

Shinji felt a from coming to his face as well at the cryptic answer. "What do you mean by that? Not in school, Tokyo-3?" A thought suddenly came to mind that made him consider running to his Eva. "Is she an Angel?" His mind was already half decided on whether to try and kill it by hand of if he would need his Eva when Rei spoke again.

"No, she is no Angel. She is no more powerful than you or I." Rei's frown deepened. "I do not know how she came to be here but she does not belong."

"Anything more specific than that?" Shinji could already feel the stress that dealing with this girl was going to cause.

"She is not in Lilith's knowledge and she knew _everyone_. We were all her children and she knew each and every one of us but she has no recollection of her."

Shinji ran the information through his head for awhile, going in circles before he realized that he was getting nowhere, putting the information to the back of his mind he decided to focus on something else.

"Why is it that PenPen seems to remember me?"

Rei raised an eyebrow at that, the chances of that happening were astronomical, something more had to have been at work here. "Animals might not have been deemed worth the effort in wiping their memories seeing as Lilith's power was being pushed to its very limits in the last moments. In several places her AT field faltered, causing things to be destroyed or shunted out of this dimension where Lilith's power could not cope."

Hearing that he might have inadvertently _caused people to cease existing_. Shinji felt the familiar weight of guilt again, but before he could even think of saying something about it Rei's hand came up in a blur and landed solidly on his face, hitting him with enough force that it knocked onto his back where he lay for a moment, stunned at the rather emotional reaction from Rei. Sure she was getting better but that was only recently and was just small things here and there, this was completely out of character for her.

When he looked up he saw Rei looking at her hand in curiosity, almost as if she thought it might try to speak to her. Seemingly putting it out of her mind she looked up from her hand and spoke before he could gain his bearings "Any who don't exist are not dead, they just don't exist. People will not mourn their loss, they cannot." With that she made her way over to her partners side and sat down with him, cupping his face with her hand. "You did what was right. Never think differently about that."

In the rapid series of events Shinji hadn't noticed the feeling of guilt lifting, so long as he had someone to care for then his mind could justify _anything_ to keep them safe. Even _removing_ people from existence. "Thanks, I needed that." Letting out a soft sigh, Shinji rubbed his face into Rei's hand, leaning into her as he did so. After awhile of relaxing to the point Rei thought he might start purring Shinji asked a question that had been on his mind since Rei's rather abrupt slap.

"It's not like you to loose control of your emotions like that. Is something wrong Rei?"

"It surprised me as well, for some reason I can feel my emotions much more clearly. They also feel much more out of control, recently I have been acting on whims or doing whatever I feel like at the time." Rei pursed her lips for a moment "I do not like this, not being in control. It reminds me when I was first created." Rei looked at him with what he could guess was her best pleading expression "How do you deal with your emotions?"

Shinji sucked in a breath at that, he had imagined having this talk sometime, but that was before the Third Impact and he had hoped to have Asuka help him with that. "Emotions are... Tricky. They can't be describe with words, people try but its only a pale shadow of what they really are." He took a deep breath, they needed to get back to class soon so he would have to continue this later, it would be best to give her something of a stop-gap to work with for now. "We are almost out of time at the moment, I'll can try to explain the best I can later, Misato would help as well." Though the thought of Misato being a psychologist made Shinji shudder.

"Anyway, for now the best thing you can do to keep your focus away from your emotions is something physically distracting. For instance when people are very angry but are trying to keep their temper the might squeeze their hands or grip something tightly. In your case the easiest thing to do if you feel out of control would be for you to bite your tongue, hard. The pain will snap you out of any emotions you are feeling and no-one else can see you doing it. It's ok if you bite too hard, even if you start to bleed the tongue heals very quickly and will be fine in minutes or hours at most."

Shinji felt a thought come to mind that made him pale "Just don't bite your tongue off. It can be reattached but it takes weeks to heal and people would be asking questions."

Rei gave him a small smile, something she had gotten better at over the years. "Thank you Shinji, we need to go for now. I'll talk to you at home." Just saying home made her feel warm, _T_ _his what it feels like to belong.  
_

* * *

Nearly a week had passed since Rei had been released from hospital and as the deadline of the approaching Angel came closer and closer Shinji spent more of his time running through strategies on how he should deal with the Fifth Angel.

The Fifth was never that much of a challenge, so long as you were aware of where his tentacles were then the damage he could do to a Eva was minimal. His abilities at shaping his AT field were at the lower end, even lower than the Fourth Angel, so his ranged explosions were harmless to an Eva with an AT field up and did minimal damage even if they were down and his defensive aspect was easier to breach than normal. To counteract this his core was remarkably resilient to damage, attacks almost seeming to flow off it. In addition the tentacles he wielded were fast, maneuverable and seemed able to pierce through an AT field without much effort, they could only be deflected rather than stopped and melted whatever they touched including the tough hide of an Eva.

Usually the best method of dealing with him was to use a ranged weapon to annihilate his core before he entered melee range, but when he had inquired what weapons they had in stock, they only had progressive knives and the currently useless Pallet Rifle, the positron rifles were still under construction and final testing. One upside to this conversation had been him subtly nudging them about what weaponry they could produce to help combat the Angels. They seemed to take his ideas well as they made sense even if some of the weapons would be monstrously expensive to produce. Little did they know that all he was doing was giving them a nudge towards technology that they had developed in the future.

Because while he was confidant in his skills as a pilot there were only advantages to getting a hold of some of the more advanced tech that they had used to combat the Angels. What they had was barely sufficient in his mind and he was sure Rei and Asuka would agree, considering that Rei was currently missing her MK-3M Positron Rifle, essentially a miniaturized version of the humongous Positron Rifle they had used to kill the Sixth Angel. It had been miniaturized at Rei's request as she took a budding interest in long range sniping and even if it was downsized it still required her to have her umbilical cord inserted or to be using a long range power pack, that being a prototype fission reactor that she could attach to her back. It allowed her to remain independent of power sources and use her power hungry rifle at the downside of it making her a massive target, as while wearing it she was carrying what was essentially a bomb on her back. This not even counting the fact that it weighed nearly half of her Eva, slowing her down significantly, if she wanted to fight in close range she would have to ditch the pack.

Asuka's favorite was significantly simpler as it didn't incur worries about power or mobility. It was a double blade, with a handle in the middle and blades extending from both ends of it. Not that Asuka would have been happy with such a simple weapon as she had it modified so that it could accept any number of attachments. She had attachments for running an enormous electrical current through the blade, raised by amplifiers to strike through their armor. Another was when the found out that Angels cores were vulnerable to direct contact with radiation she'd had them create two replacement blades that were constantly being bathed in the radiation from the nuclear power plant they had encase an EMP knocked out their primary power. There was also another for raising its temperature to over 84,000 Celsius, three times hotter than lighting, so hot that it visibly melted the air around it to form plasma, that was then forced by magnetic fields and her AT field into forming an incredibly hot 'Aura' around her blade.

Shinji himself opted for a MK-7B Pallet Rifle, it had been upgraded through the years to be able to keep up with the advancing skill of the pilots and Angels, and the MK-7B was the 16'th iteration of the Pallet Rifle. The A series had been abandoned as they gave the weapon a heavy facelift so that it could handle a heavier ammo load and durability issues. The A series was fully automatic and fired an Armor Piercing 209mm round that after field tests was deemed to be inadequate in dealing with the Angels, seeing as the only way to use it was to lower the Angels AT field with theirs first, something that usually involved hand to hand combat thus making the weapon redundant. The B series was created to try and alleviate those problems, with years of repairing and constructing advanced and hardy electronics for the Eva the team set out to make an all rounded weapon that would last in any fight with the Angels.

The rifle had been made with the ability to fire multiple different rounds, the ammo having been switched for 420mm, battleship shells. The three different types of ammo used were APCR for the middle ground between penetration and damage when the enemy still had their AT field, HESH was used for close combat when the enemies AT field was either knocked out or was being nullified and APCNR was used at longer ranges for penetrating power with such an impact that it could knock shielded Angels off their feet. It was made with three different operating modes to compliment this, it's default mode was fully automatic with an even balance between accuracy and rate of fire. When switched to its secondary close combat mode it sacrifices accuracy for a massive boost in rate of fire, basically turning the weapon into a handheld minigun. The final mode that he could switch his rifle to was a longer range setting that reduced his fire rate down to semi-auto but increased the accuracy drastically, including the stopping power as this was the only way he could fire APCNR rounds without damaging the rifle.

Despite him subtly encouraging the tech's to recreate their favorite weapons, for now all he had was the barely effective MK-1A Pallet Rifle and the ever unchanging Progressive Knife. When he had asked about how long it would take to _theoretically_ put these weapons together their best estimate was at two months, a very, very long time to wait for proper combat equipment considering the foe's they faced. After some doing he had managed to convince the techs to get Gendo to green light the project, obviously seeing the benefits that could come from advanced weaponry, especially as it would be cheaper than having another party design and manufacture the weapons as they were doing with the Positron Rifles.

Standing up from where he had been sitting in his room he stretched the stiffness out and made his way through to the kitchen, it was time he put dinner on and Misato was going to be back soon. Quickly moving through the kitchen with the experience of an expert he put together what he would call a decent meal, knowing to Misato's dead taste buds that it would be one of the best things she had eaten in her entire life.

When he was most of the way done, just turning the oven up higher, he heard the click of the door unlocking and the sound of Misato babbling about something as she did. _Misato brought someone home?_ It was a good thing he made so much food when he was cooking, any excess went to PenPen where he would devour it on his own time. Listening to her her babble the most he could get out of it was something involving his name and what sounded like teasing.

Rolling his eyes at Misato's habits he reached into the fridge and put a beer out on the side so that Misato could grab it as she came through the door, something that never failed to put her in a good mood. "Welcome home, dinners nearly done." He called out to her as she came through the entry way, grabbing the beer from the side just as she always did in an automatic action as she smiled at him in thanks when she took a deep gulp from her drink.

"Ahh, thanks Shin-chan, just what I need after a long day at work."

"Its maintenance Misato, you don't have work today." It was one of the few times that Nerv personnel had the day off, not that they actually did as they were required to remain in standby encase of an Angel attack but it was the thought that counted. Maintenance only happened four times a year, in the middle of each season, it was the most that they could do without putting Nerv into a situation that it wasn't ready for Angel attacks.

Upon hearing that she stopped for a second before she scowled "I knew Rits was lying to me, people off sick my ass." Grumbling about something or other Shinji turned himself to whoever had come back with her and was pleasantly surprised to see Rei standing there in her customary School Uniform, giving her a smile he made his way around the kitchen, setting up utensils. "You can come in Rei, this place is your home as much as it is mine."

Hearing that Rei smiled, thinking about the days that they shared everything, housing included. "Thank you Shinji." Noticing Misato's smirk she chided herself _Too soon, Pilot Ikari or Ikari would have been more appropriate considering how long we've 'known' each other._ Taking a brief look around, she noticed how clean it was _Shinji's doing I suppose, he hates dirty places. Thinking of which, I need to move out of my current accommodations, they are inadequate. Perhaps here? I wonder how to convince Gendo of this..._ Rei smiled in her mind _I don't need to do anything, Misato might not care about her living conditions but she cares about others, more than she cares about herself sadly._ "Your house is... Nice, Katsuragi-san." She didn't know her well enough to be familiar with her, nor did she know Misato as Shinji had and the knowledge of how she had given her life for Shinji made her respect her all the more. Her thoughts on the matter were derailed as she felt an irrational wave of happiness at the though of getting to know Misato, quickly snapping her teeth down on her tongue to bring herself back to focus she mentally cursed her suddenly uneven emotions. _I've been perfectly in control for years, what's wrong with me?_

"Mhh." Misato let out around her drink, taking it out she turned to Rei, who all of a sudden looked very awkward. "You can thank Shin-chan for that, I think he might have a fetish for cleaning." Hearing a sudden strangled choke she turned to see Shinji looking at her as if contemplating the easiest way to set her on fire with his eyes. "Uhh, no offense Shin-chan." She squeaked out.

Clearing his throat Shinji settled his glare on Misato as he tapped his hand on the plate full of food, enjoying the way her face suddenly paled. _You shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you Misato._ "Its ok Misato." He let her face relax for a moment before he continued "I thought you might enjoy some spice with your meal tonight." Watching as she tried to keep her face from paling again was well worth it, especially as she had been drinking, _Alcohol and Spice don't mix eh Misato?_

Watching in glee from the kitchen as Misato slowly ate her way through the meal, trying as hard as she could to not spit it out and beg for some milk to cool down her mouth. When he had decided that she had been punished enough he passed her a glass of milk before he went back to Rei, who looked like she had gained control of her equilibrium again, a grateful nod being all she could manage.

While Misato was occupied with her meal he decided to try and get some clarification for something that had been bothering him for the past several days. "Rei, you know the strange girl, Masuyo, I think her name is? She's started acting strangely again." Rei looked up at this, her eyes focusing as she listened on one of the few mysteries that were out of her knowledge "The other day she came up to me and asked me if I was alright, and that I should forgive Toji. I've never even talked to Toji this time around, much let have something to forgive him for. I also overheard her talking about the Eva to Kensuke the other day, she was talking about their size and weight, although she stopped talking when he asked about the pilots.

Shinji let Rei take that in for a moment, taking her silence as a cue to continue. "How does she know their stats? That information is classified." Could she be a spy from SEELE or the UN? The answer immediately came to mind _No, they would never flaunt what they knew, at least not this openly. They would lord it over Gendo in private._

Rei seemed to think about that for awhile before shaking her head "I know nothing for certain, it is possible that she is a rather inept spy, perhaps put in place by the Commander to test out loyalty. She might have been one of the staff that worked on the Eva in the future although I doubt that, I would have known seeing as she would still be one of Lilith's children."

Shinji stifled a sigh, still no answers then. "Its ok, I had just hoped Lilith would know _something_."

Rei looked slightly miffed at that, although knowing her newly out of control temper she might either be annoyed or contemplating hiding his corpse. "Lilith _did_ know something. Even when I was a part of her, in her last moments when I was drawn from her she was planning something that she kept from me absolutely."

Shinji felt a slither of worry worm its way into his mind, Lilith was powerful beyond belief, she was more than a god. The entire human race could be outfit with Eva to fight her and they wouldn't make a scratch. The idea that she had done something, planned for this present was not a thought that he was comfortable with. "Do you think she knows?" She was kept in Central Dogma, close enough to do heinous damage if she was aware of the future.

"No, her mind was destroyed utterly. The Lilith in Central Dogma is as harmless as she was last time."

Shinji let out a weak sigh, the threat was somewhat averted but she had still done _something_. Glancing up from where they were quietly chatting in the corner, he saw that Misato was almost finished with her meal. "No more time today, we have a synch test tomorrow we can talk after that." Clearing his throat to draw Misato away from her food induced slouch he tipped his head to Rei "It was nice to talk with Rei, but she needs to get back to her housing. I don't think the Commander would be pleased to know that you were the reason that his favorite Pilot was missing."

Shinji barely caught Misato wince before she was already on her feet and half way to the door, a startled Rei in he grasp as she called back "You tell him a word and I'll sick PenPen on you." Before the door slammed shut and he heard Misato's barely working car turn over shortly after. Shaking his head at his guardians antics he washed the kitchen, not needing to bother with his things as he had eaten before Misato had returned.

After he cleaned up he made his way to his room, taking the free time to run though some rudimentary exercises, piloting the Eva itself _did_ make you physically stronger somehow but it was cathartic to exercise himself. When he did so his mind blanked out and he could just... go. Like he did in a fight, no need to think, just following his instincts and reactions that came from repeated practice. His body was slightly more muscled than normal at this point, exercising more for endurance than bursts of strength. Because while Piloting the Eva was a mental task, having a body that was in prime condition helped their Synch ratio and helped to balance the difference between the Eva's strength and his own.

It was hard to use the Eva at first because they were so vastly stronger than humans, every action had far too much force in it and it caused them to trip or their muscles to lock up.

Running through one last set of stretches Shinji heard the PA announcing a blackout on Nerv orders, _probably the maintenance team doing a test or something._ Seeing as the sun was going to go down soon and and so were the lights he resigned himself to an early rest. Sliding himself into his bed he was out like a light in seconds, the exhaustion of the day catching up to him.

Several hours later a smug Misato came in through the door. After having seen a glimpse of Rei's _room_ , if it could even be called that, she had dragged the poor girl to Kozo and spent the better amount of an hour chewing him out over her living space, not letting him get a word in edgewise until he had relented and let her move Rei to the housing next door. After showing Rei her new accommodations, and getting possibly the most emotion out of her in the time she knew her, a slight smile. She had invited Rei to sleep in her house for this night, assuring her that she could move in properly tomorrow and that it was fine for her to sleep in her house for the night, she had a spare room after all and even if she didn't she was sure that neither of the two would mind sharing a room, at least in her mind as she silently decided whether Maya would go better with Ritsuko or that cute female tech she had seen wandering around the break room that she never got the name of.

* * *

 **Tell me what you think, any spelling mistakes or errors I made.**

 **Misato, Shipper extraordinaire. I can see this clear as day.  
**


End file.
